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learners do not necessarily have Special
Educational Needs, just like any other group
Key Figures:
of students some will need some support and
Ÿ 60 EAL Learners
others will be more able. It is also vital that
Ÿ 11 New arrivals
we remember that we are teaching them
English as an additional language and not as
Ÿ 13 ‘acquiring’ English
a replacement for their first language. When
Ÿ 14 with High Level English
students are learning English in an immersion
Ÿ 26 BLL learners
environment it takes about 2 years for them
to develop Basic Interpersonal
BLL stands for Bilingual Learners and can be Communication Skills (BICS) and 5 years for
assigned to any student who has competency them to acquire CALP (Cognitive and
in two or more languages. There is no
Academic Language Proficiency).
requirement for them to be fluent in both
languages but they are able to use two or
To get the maximum benefit from learning
more languages. Not all of our BLL learners English as an additional language, and
have English as one of their languages.
moving towards becoming bilingual, we must
always encourage our EAL learners to
The languages spoken by students at QEA
continue to use and develop their first, and
are:
indeed other, language. We can do this by
Ÿ Bengali
actively encouraging them to use their first
Ÿ Polish
language to support their acquisition of
Ÿ Lithuanian
English. Easy ways we can do this is to
Ÿ Latvian
encourage students to keep supporting notes
Ÿ Russian
in their first language, allowing them to use
Ÿ French
a bilingual dictionary to enable them to
Ÿ Slovak
improve the quality and variety of English
Ÿ Turkish
that they use in their written and spoken
Ÿ Serbian
work, discussing tasks with a “buddy” in
Ÿ Italian
their first language.
Ÿ Gujurati
Bilingualism is a skill in itself that should be
If we are to fully support our EAL and BLL
encouraged and celebrated but it is more
learners we must always remember that they than this. Research has shown that
are learning the English language at the
bilinguals have a number of areas where
same time as learning through the medium of there skills are more developed.
English. Even for those students with a
higher level of fluency in English it is
These areas are:
important that we bear in mind that they are Ÿ classification skills
not using their first language and so
Ÿ concept formation
therefore may need more time, or some
Ÿ analogical reasoning
additional support, to enable them to fully
Ÿ visual-spatial skills
access all elements of our lessons. EAL
Ÿ Creativity