[eal-bilingual] New Arrivals Forum and first language evidence

How can we access your material on first language Graham? The NALDIC 
northish London embryonic regional group are looking at these issues.

Re the forum issue, I hope this one does not shrink because it is 
lively and very useful for disseminating information. However, with all 
the changes I am not sure that all EMA managers belong, and do they if 
they have  encouraged their teams and schools to join? I have been 
encouraging all the members of MASSEA to join recently. 

There used to be a way of knowing who belonged by it does not seem to 
be possible to do this now.

I plan to try to join Linda's new arrivals forum and will direct any 
member of that forum to join this one too! Like Mary I will report back 
on my success.

Stuart

----Original Message----
From: graham.smith737 at ntlworld.com
Date: Oct 6, 2007 21:43 
To: "For practitioners involved in teaching pupils from ethnic 
andlinguistic
	minorities"<eal-bilingual at lists.becta.org.uk>
Subj: RE: [eal-bilingual] Re: New Arrivals Forum

I think Alison's right.

This is a very supportive and productive forum. It's a place where we 
share
useful information, but also have quite robust arguments in the secure
knowledge that the broadly shared educational beliefs that attract us 
to the
forum make it safe and productive to argue.

I thought be worth trying to tease out what those core beliefs (or 
values)
are. So here's a starter. I think we're broadly in agreement that:

-collaborative learning increases achievement
-first language initiatives increase EAL pupils' achievement in 
English
(we've got some interesting KS2 evidence from Islington to share on 
this)
-pupils with EAL need explicit teaching about how academic language 
works.

Graham Smith

-----Original Message-----
From: eal-bilingual-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:eal-bilingual-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of Alison 
Mott
Sent: 06 October 2007 11:33
To: 'For practitioners involved in teaching pupils from ethnic
andlinguisticminorities'
Subject: RE: [eal-bilingual] Re: New Arrivals Forum

When you're with the best, why bother with the rest....

Actually, I clicked onto the TES EMAG forum to have a look, spent time 
I
didn't really have reading postings, even sent in a couple of replies,
then spotted one response for 'help' which went something along the
lines of "you might be lucky - if the Chinese child you're supporting
knows they're staying in England for some time they will make the 
effort
to learn, otherwise if they know they're going home soon, they 
probably
won't bother."  How disappointing!  And this, presumably, from a
teacher!  It seems that I forget, working in the EMASS environment 
that
I do, that people still believe this sort of thing.

I think I'll stay here, too, with like-minded people.

Alison

-----Original Message-----
From: eal-bilingual-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:eal-bilingual-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of
Nelzfam at aol.com
Sent: 05 October 2007 20:09
To: eal-bilingual at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: Re: [eal-bilingual] Re: New Arrivals Forum

I agree with you Mary. I registered but then couldn't access any 
forums.

I'll stick with this one ,Thanks!
Anne

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Supporting a cooperative network of teaching professionals to develop and disseminate accessible teaching materials in all subject areas and for all ages.
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