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The Content

Where English is an additional language, many students experience difficulties at school. Often it is not everyday social language that is the problem - they may quickly pick this up - but they find it harder to understand and express themselves in the specialist language which we use in the classroom for different school subjects. Easiteach EAL has been designed to help these pupils to get the most out of their education and fulfil their academic potential. It provides a wide range of context-rich content for teaching academic language to EAL pupils. Intended both for mainstream teachers and EAL specialists, Easiteach EAL's interactive materials use an innovative, engaging approach to language learning which helps students get the full benefit from their education.

The Easiteach EAL content pack consists of 90 whole-class teaching activities, many of which have been developed in partnership with Hounslow Language Service. These are organised into the three strands of the core curriculum, to provide resources for teaching Maths, English and Science objectives while emphasising language development in these contexts. Easiteach EAL focuses on the transition topics from Key Stage 1 to Key Stage 2, and will benefit pupils in mainstream classes and in EAL group work.

Easiteach EAL activities have been written to follow some core principles of language acquisition:

Providing relevant contexts – Easiteach EAL uses topics and contexts from the national curricula which are appropriate for Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 pupils.

Building on existing knowledge – Easiteach EAL activities encourage discussion of the curriculum objectives, enabling teachers to assess their pupils' understanding of concepts and language. The teaching screens follow a developmental structure, so that teachers can choose the most appropriate starting point and route through each activity.

Meeting learners' needs – Easiteach EAL emphasises the language that pupils need for topics in the mainstream curriculum. It gives support at word level (e.g., developing appropriate vocabulary), sentence level (e.g., tense and clause structure) and text level (e.g., sequence markers). Together with these topic resources, it also gives links for exploring how technical words are used in everyday language.

Using knowledge structures to build a language framework – Easiteach EAL activities support language development as outlined by the six knowledge structures - classifying, describing, reasoning, sequencing, evaluating and deciding. There is a strong emphasis on the specific language used in the topic, and opportunities are provided for exploring the different styles of language that each structure requires.

Supporting pupils as active learners – Easiteach provides an excellent platform for pupils to explore ideas and develop their own knowledge structures. Visual cues help discussion and support language development, while the different styles of interactivity provide a variety of kinaesthetic opportunities. In addition, Easiteach EAL includes a wide range of interactive games, to engage pupils in their learning and make it fun!

Supporting pupils as active learners – Easiteach provides an excellent platform for pupils to explore ideas and develop their own knowledge structures. Visual cues help discussion and support language development, while the different styles of interactivity provide a variety of kinaesthetic opportunities. In addition, Easiteach EAL includes a wide range of interactive games, to engage pupils in their learning and make it fun!