Understanding the Needs of EAL Learners in School X

Running head: SCHOOL EXPERIENCE REPORT (SER)
How Do Staff at School X Understand the Needs of EAL Learners and How Do
They Support and Monitor the Development of These Learners in the Core Subjects of
English, Maths & Science?
School Experience Report (SER)
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1SCHOOL EXPERIENCE REPORT (SER)
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................3
EAL Interventions..................................................................................................................3
EAL support in Class.............................................................................................................4
EAL........................................................................................................................................6
References:.................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Students who learn English as their additional language (EAL) share several different
common characteristics with the other students whose first language is English. Most of their
learning requirements are also similar to that of the other children. Notwithstanding this fact,
these students also have different needs from them by virtue of fact that they are learning in
and through an additional language while also learning that very language. With the same,
they also come from different cultural backgrounds and the communities with diverse
expectations and understandings of the education, learning and language. The population of
United Kingdom is rapidly increasing and at the same time, the ever increasing immigration
is outweighing the total emigration. This is bringing is diversity within the nation as the
population belonging from diverse background is increasing in a fast pace. Therefore,
increasing number of students are entering into the education system with other languages
apart from English as their first language. This in turn is playing a very challenging role for
the parts of the teachers in UK as well as the Department of Education to cater these
population who still need access to same high standards of teaching and learning but might
not be capable of cooperating in the classroom environment because of not knowing the very
language.
This paper is going to elaborate on providing a brief analysis of the EAL intervention
that are put in place by school X for understanding the various different needs and
requirements of the EAL learners as well as their development in the core subjects. It is to
note that School X refers to the Harrow High School, which is a coeducational school in the
borough of Harrow with a total of 1000 students on a roll. It has a large number of students
who are classified as the EAL learners. 79.3% of the total students in this school are EAL
learners. It is an inclusive school where the teachers value the achievements and the abilities
of all the learners. It is a school for students aging 7 to 11 years with diverse population of

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about 18 different nationalities and home languages. However, this paper would also shed
light on how the staffs of the School X support and monitor the development of these
learners. With the same, the perceived effectiveness of the EAL intervention shall also be
assessed in the following paper. It aims at determining some strategies which could be
implemented in the practices of teaching in the school X over different subjects present in the
curriculum, especially English, Mathematics and Science.
Literature Review
EAL Interventions
School X has a clear policy on assessment, within which specific elements relate to
AfL strategies and there are also references to AfL within the school’s teaching and learning
policy. Within the assessment policy there is a strong emphasis on comment only marking
across key stage 3 (p.12), which seems to draw directly from the original AfL research.
Although there is no direct reference to UK government recommendations or policies around
AfL within the school policy document, there are clear echoes of the government’s guidance
document in the section of the school’s policy that indicates how summative assessment may
be used for formative purposes. The policies laid by UK government states that the students
who are exposed to a particular language at their homes which is known or perceived to be
other than English are referred to as EALs. It is to note that according to the recent study
conducted by Cummins (1992), the national proportion of the students of secondary school
who are classified as the EAL has continuously risen in the past ten years and at present, it
stands at 16.2%. This rise has been very stead and is six years behind the percentage points of
the EAL students belonging from the primary schools that at present stands at 20.6% (Siegel
and Lipka 2017). This indicates that most of the students in primary school moved to the
secondary school in United Kingdom and this further demonstrate that they have about six
years of education with having English as their classroom language prior to their entry in the