Promoting a Whole School Bilingual Approach
The first aspect of promoting a whole school bilingual approach is to ensure everyone knows WHY this is important!
This includes pupils, staff, parents, governors and anyone involved with the school community.
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So why is a bilingual approach important and how might it support learning, inclusion, participation, community spirit and pupil and staff wellbeing?
You might want to use the ‘Did you know…?’ sheet below to raise awareness, as this gives some of the benefits of being bilingual.
It could be sent out in newsletters, discussed in staff meetings, be on the agenda of governor meetings etc.
There is a useful 5 minute video which emphasises some of these points, which you can access here:
All those connected with the school need to be aware of the significant benefits of being bilingual or multilingual.
Once we realise the benefits, this is a strong motivation to promote languages at every opportunity and to celebrate the diverse language population of our school.
A useful task, to get everyone thinking about their own language use, is to show them this continuum:
Often, people will say, Oh, I don’t speak any languages! And yet, when they complete this continuum, they remember back to learning languages at school/going on holidays abroad etc.
It is a good way to get everyone thinking and talking about languages and to find out which languages are spoken in the school.
Taking a bilingual approach in school does not mean that everyone needs to be fluent in more than one language - it is more about being aware of different languages, how languages link, how we can use the linguistic diversity of our staff and pupils to positively impact on everyone’s school experience and recognising that a multilingual world is the reality.
Below is a very useful reading which might be something to share with staff to encourage this awareness.
It is entitled, ‘Opening Doors to Success in Multilingual Classrooms: Bilingualism, Codeswitching and the Professional Identities of Ethnic Minority Primary Teachers’ and is written by Jean Conteh - a highly respected researcher in the EAL field.
Although this has ‘primary’ teachers in the title, it is very relevant to all those working with pupils with EAL.
You might also want to ask your SLT to buy Conteh’s book for your staff:
The best way to promote a whole school bilingual approach is what we tend to call the ‘drip drip’ strategy.
This involves providing small, ‘doable’ and manageable ideas/activities/resources which do not take a great deal of effort but which, over a period of time, can have a significant impact.
A lot of drips make up a very big bucket!
The document below provides some ideas for these ‘drips’!
Providing staff with plenty of ideas that are easily implemented in the classroom, can go a long way towards promoting a bilingual approach.
In the chapter below, adapted from Virginia’s book on supporting pupils with EAL, there are more ideas and you might want to share the chapter with staff and then add it to a staff meeting agenda, to discuss how teachers might adapt the suggestions for their own groups and classes.
You might also want to share with them a useful resource - a framework produced by Pauline Gibbons (who writes a great deal about supporting EAL learners).
This framework provides the following headings for use when planning lessons:
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Topic
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Activities
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Language functions
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Language structures
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Vocabulary
This framework could be used by staff, to think about how language can become the focus of every lesson and how a bilingual approach might be taken.
We hope these resources have given you ideas that are accessible and easily shared with staff and the wider community.