EAL students – How to prepare for the linguistic challenges of formal exams
How can teachers prepare older EAL students for the formalities of the exam room? Caroline Scott shares her thoughts…
Every day in secondary schools, subject teachers are faced with the daunting task of supporting EAL students with both the academic language they need to pass exams, and the linguistic knowledge they need to articulate their understanding.
Subject teachers can feel underskilled in supporting these learners’ linguistic requirements, and will therefore – understandably – focus more on the building blocks of the content, such as topic words or answers to concepts. So how can subject teachers do more to support EAL students with both the course content and the linguistic side of their learning?
Let’s consider some simple strategies for addressing learners’ linguistic requirements when teaching academic content:
1. Use home language to support EAL students
Intermediate learners will often find new concepts difficult because they don’t understand enough of the topic. If, however, EAL students can research a topic in their own language, it will put them in a better position to understand related concepts by making connections between their own language and English.
2. Pre-teach model answers prior to exams
Review a number of exam questions together over a series of lessons, and then co-construct short model answers using accessible vocabulary. Co-construction is a powerful way of modelling what an exam answer might require, which can also help with identifying key language structures and specific technical vocabulary.
Come up with some prototype answers using structures the exam questions may call for. For example, one question might ask the student to ‘explain’, ‘report’ or ‘argue’. Each of these has its own language structures which need to be within the learner’s repertoire of potential responses – so it follows that if learners can identify which text type the question requires, the associated structures will help them write their answer.
3. Use substitution tables
Substitution tables provide useful frames for supporting the understanding of potentially complex text. They can not only generate the answer needed to fulfil a question’s requirements, but also help learners easily construct multiple sentences/answers by showing how to exchange key vocabulary.
If, for instance, a sample question requires learners to identify different types of beliefs, a simple substitution table can help frame the answer, as shown below:
| Some Many | people individuals | hold believe feel | the | view | that | … |
4. Provide EAL students with vocabulary lists with translations
If there are too many new words in a text, a learner is unlikely to understand it. Providing academic vocabulary lists with translations can be very supportive. This is especially true if issued in advance. This way, learners have time to digest what’s about to be taught to them.
In an ideal world, the number of new vocabulary items a learner is introduced to may be fairly low (say, 10 to 12 words). These will then be repeated over days and applied in different ways. Yet teachers and learners often lack the luxury of time to introduce vocabulary in small chunks slowly – or, indeed, repeat it strategically in many different ways.
5. Repetition and feedback
Once a learner has begun to construct their own answers to exam questions, try to work with them one-to-one in order to generate feedback on the linguistic construction of their answers and the content. Revise this together and rewrite it. Then remove all previously provided models and ask the student to complete their answer again – only this time, completely unaided.
This process of building a model, having a go, revising together and then removing models can be extremely powerful!
EAL learners already face the hard task of entering into an English-medium education with limited English proficiency. It’s our responsibility as teachers to do what we can to scaffold English as a language. This is so that learners can successfully develop the language they’ll need to effectively articulate meaning in exams.
Caroline Scott is the founder of Across Cultures, creator of the Learning Village programme and an EAL teacher trainer. She previously worked in schools across the world, developing English language skills for young learners. For more information, visit learningvillage.net or follow @eal_teaching
