Receiving a new EAL pupil into your class, with little to no English, can be a daunting prospect for any teacher. With 29 other pupils to teach, and without a teaching assistant, it can be difficult to find the time to introduce the child to some English language basics.
In this post, I aim to share with you some of the activities I have used with EAL pupils over the years. They will need to be introduced to the child first with the hope that they can later get on with the activities independently. I have picked out a few engaging Twinkl resources that have been created by teachers for teachers.
Colours
These Colour Flashcards by Twinkl are a great resource to introduce the English colour names to new pupils. They are available with translations in a variety of languages. Sadly, the child that I was teaching at the time had never been taught to read so the Romanian translations were of little use to him. I had spent some time with him, introducing the names of colours with the flashcards, before setting him off on his independent task, which was to label various different coloured items around the classroom.
After completing this task, the pupil told me the name of each colour. Then, he used the flashcards to help him play an Education City game to reinforce his learning.
Weather
Twinkl also produce this fantastic Weather Clothes Sorting Activity. Whilst the rest of my class learned about climates in different parts of the world, I was able to use this resource with the EAL pupil to reinforce the English names for different types of weather whilst also introducing the vocabulary for various items of clothing.
Stories
The ‘traditional tales’ resources available on Twinkl are great for giving EAL pupils the opportunity to begin retelling short stories in English. I used the Jack and the Beanstalk resources although they have a great range of stories to choose from. First, I asked the child to watch this Narrated Story then they ordered the accompanying Story Sequencing Pictures.
The child was then able to use the pictures to retell the story verbally, whilst practising their English speaking skills.
I hope that some of these activities, resources and suggestions may be useful for you in the future.
*Twinkl have provided me with a free subscription in return for my reviews of their resources however it is important that you know that all thoughts and opinions are my own.
