English as an Additional Language
Success at Bromsgrove International School Thailand
During this academic year, the EAL Department have thoroughly enjoyed working with our students. From Year 2 to Year 6, engaging and dynamic lessons have been planned, prepared and delivered as curriculum support to extend and develop the knowledge and skills our students need to further close the academic language gap, thereby allowing all our students to progress in their classrooms.
The Year 2 and Year 3 EAL students have covered a variety of concepts across the four strands of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Through play-based learning, they have made huge strides across all the necessary areas. From prepositions of place scavenger hunts to story retell comic books, creating books of their own using the innovative technology of iPads to include their own narrations and pictures of their choice; also making use of, and developing, their IT skills. During book week, the children had loads of fun putting together our classroom book week display, in tandem with their older peers: designing pirate flags, pirate ships and everything they could think of to support our pirate theme. With all of their fun and hard work, we are very excited to see how they continue to progress as they move to their next year groups.
Besides experiencing a year of progressive grammar and reading skills, the Year 4 EAL students have really enjoyed researching and learning more about Instructional writing. Initially, they completed a series of activities looking at language and structural features of Instructional writing. Thereafter, it was time to put their knowledge into practice: from delicious to disgusting recipes, concocting a delicious, healthy smoothie by using a variety of delicious ingredients, cooking a scrumptious mug cake, crafting a delightful pop-up card, and more! These students have worked extremely hard, all the while having lots of fun through design and craft, demonstrating their knowledge of the features of instructional writing, and, perhaps most importantly of all, putting those instructions into practice!
The Year 5 EAL students have been developing their writing skills during this year, by incorporating their extended grammar skills. Their final, written task was an opportunity for our students to demonstrate the amazing progress they have made over the course of the year, and, as such, the students have been extraordinarily enthusiastic to show-off what they know and what they have learnt. From speech mark station races, homophone catchers, pronoun foldable books, treasure island articles and survival lists, the students have undertaken a series of innovative activities in order for them to consolidate the grammatical features that they needed to include in their end-of-year written piece. They are fabulous reads, no doubt!
The Year 6 EAL students, on the cusp of exiting Primary school and on their transition journey to Secondary, have been working towards their end-of-year written pieces, the culmination of their time in Primary, by many counts. We have been consolidating areas that the students have previously learned during EAL, but in the depth needed to equip them with the tools they require to approach their academics when they reach the heights of Secondary. As such, the Year 6 students have been undertaking activities specifically designed to increase their confidence and deepen their understanding surrounding different areas of grammatical knowledge.
We are about to culminate an extraordinary year in the EAL department, and I can say, without a doubt, that all our students have had a fantastic year of learning. I invite you to join me on applauding them and our awesome success this year! We are looking forward to another great year ahead!
Here, you will be able to view some of the fabulous moments that we have captured throughout this year.
Best regards,
Sunitha Issari, Ben Hlavaty and Debbie O’ Boyle
