We are happy to share with you the presentation from two wonderful Lexis Education tutors. Payal Yadav and Imogen Lazarus explore ways of speeding up our EAL students’ learning of English and learning in English through a focus on how languages work to make meaning. This approach draws on a metalanguage (a language for talking about language) for English, which can be equally drawn on to contrast how the students’ additional (or other or primary) languages share similarities or differences with English.
Payal Yadav is a PLC Leader at Noble Park English Language School and ‘How Language Works’ Tutor specialising in EAL strategies and incorporating systemic functional grammar in primary EAL classes. In this presentation, she details her experience in a New Arrivals primary setting, working with students with diverse language backgrounds. She outlines a unit of work using the Description genre on the topic of animals with a range of highly scaffolded yet high challenge language activities to enable students to develop an understanding of how language works.
Imogen Lazarus is an English and Italian teacher specialising in literacy pedagogies, including Systemic Functional Linguistics, discipline-specific literacies, and multiliteracies. She presents on her work with secondary students and details her use of the teaching and learning cycle and explicit instruction about clause and phrase structures.
Thank you to VicTESOL for organising the webinar.