Narrator

Homebush Public School has a focus on recognising the potential and developing the talent of all its students. In this illustration of practice, we see effective talent development of EAL/D learners by focusing on developing English language proficiency. The teachers do this by using home language, activating prior knowledge, recasting academic language, providing guided support, building vocabulary, modelling sentence structure, and talking to write. These strategies allow English language learners to simultaneously develop their English language proficiency and their talent in the Creative domain.

EAL/D specialist teacher

So we're going to talk about appreciating art, thinking about what you think about art.

Narrator

To make curriculum concepts accessible to EAL/D learners, the teacher screens a video in their home language.

EAL/D specialist teacher

So we're going to have a look at some portraits. This is a portrait. What's a portrait, Sophia?

Narrator

The teacher is using home language to support the EAL/D learners and activating prior knowledge, which is an effective strategy for all learners.

Student 1

A person or, or, or more than one person.

EAL/D specialist teacher

Good. So it's a representation.

Narrator

The teacher builds all students' academic language by recasting the student's response into Tier 3 vocabulary, the word representation.

EAL/D specialist teacher

Did Evan share with you? What did he talk about?

Narrator

The teacher encourages a newly arrived student to participate in the lesson through the use of home language.

Classroom teacher

Yep, so we've shown you what it looks like, did one together. Now it's your turn to think, see, and wonder about this beautiful artwork here. Have a look at it. Have a look, have a think, and a wonder.

Narrator

To support the EAL/D learners, one teacher provides guided support while the remainder of the class completes an independent task.

Classroom teacher

How do you feel at the end of the school day? Very tired.

EAL/D specialist teacher

What's a better word than very tired if you're really, really tired? Nina? Exhausted. That's a good one.

Classroom teacher

So we could say, "I think the boy is feeling exhausted because he's been at school all day."

Narrator

After the oral activity, students were asked to write a sentence about the portrait.

Student 2

The boy is feeling exhausted because he had a bad day. The boy is comfortable because he's cuddling with the cute cat.

Narrator

In this video, we saw effective co-teaching to support English language learning and talent development of EAL/D learners. Through activating prior knowledge, use of home language, and providing extra guided support, they created equitable access to the curriculum. By sequencing the lesson from talking to writing activities, the teachers support English language learning as well as talent development in the Creative domain so that all students are able to demonstrate higher order thinking.

Narrator

In this video, we see two teachers reflecting on a co-teaching lesson. Their discussion focuses on ways to support talent development of EAL/D learners. At Homebush Public School, there is a strong focus on the creative domain across the school.

EAL/D specialist teacher

Following some prompts from some PL, Identifying Creative Students, and also just noting the work that we have displayed or chosen to display in the foyer area of our school or around the classroom, that was quite easy to identify. And of course, those students who are happy to come along at lunchtime to be part of the visual arts club, the lunchtime club. I've also created a Google Classroom where students who demonstrate these strengths and passions have been able to check in and ask for more. I can see by comments in the stream that they're really engaged and have shown a passion for it. My knowledge, and then also the teacher identification, and seeing where they match up and pair is an indication that that they're keen and interested.

We used a lot of strategies to ensure that those new arrival or beginner language students could access the mainstream lesson.

Classroom teacher

Even doing all the different facial expressions, letting them do the facial expressions, naming them on the visuals. There was a lot of contingent scaffolding that we were doing during the lesson to allow them to access it. There's a lot of bilingual support going on, whether it's students turn to each other and speak in their language to allow them to access the lesson as well.

EAL/D specialist teacher

We differentiated in a variety of ways. We gave them lots of bilingual support. We had differentiated translated sentence stems.

Classroom teacher

There's lots of scaffolds with the "I see, I think, I wonder" sentence stems. Even before the lesson, we had it translated in their language to differentiate.

EAL/D specialist teacher

We're also fortunate to source a video that was in Mandarin as well, so I think the students really found that beneficial when it came to.

Classroom teacher

We also had printouts with the visuals of the emotions that we were talking about during the lessons. So there was a bank of words, word bank. There's lots of message abundancy going on to differentiate. We even had that translated in their language, too.

EAL/D specialist teacher

And the explicit teaching model of "I do, we do, you do", with the "think, pair, share" activity. So giving them the opportunity, that time for silence to gather their thoughts independently, and then to comfortably share those ideas with their partner with possibly using their first language and then being comfortable and ready to share with the whole group.

So one of the strategies that we use is the high challenge/high support strategy. There's lots of vocab introduced, and whilst it might be beyond the ability of the beginner language learner to use immediately, by hearing that and seeing it written and being scaffolded and modelled by peers and then translated as well, then they are exposed to it, and that repeated exposure should ensure that the concept is understood, and that they are hopefully able to use that.

Classroom teacher

So there's that high challenge, and then the support, we've got the visuals and we're scribing it down for them.

Narrator

In this video, we observed two teachers reflecting on a co-teaching lesson, focusing on strategies to support talent development in the Creative domain of EAL/D learners. The strategies the teachers discussed were high challenge/high support; bilingual support, including the use of home language in the classroom; message abundancy; visual scaffolds; sentence stems; I do, we do, you do. These strategies ensure EAL/D learners are supported to engage in a challenging curriculum and have their creative potential developed.

Narrator

There is a focus on developing the potential of all learners at Canley Vale High School. In this video, an English teacher describes how she programs and plans safe and inclusive teaching and learning to ensure all students can achieve their potential and develop their talent. We hear how the teacher plans teaching and learning units in which all students can see something of themselves and their home cultures.

Classroom teacher

How can we integrate the Term 3 unit, which was Food for Thought, into our Term 4 unit, which is Drama? How can we integrate that and then imagine a slam poem about food, because food unites us all and brings us together.

Narrator

Finding a connection to the school’s community is a way of creating safe and inclusive learning environments.

Classroom teacher

So we went into investigating what slam poetry is and we looked at how slam poetry is actually part of our community, especially the Bankstown Slam Poem Competition.

Narrator

Next, the teacher explains one strategy she uses to support her EAL/D learners.

Classroom teacher

So firstly, we looked at the vocabulary of the Food for Thought unit because that was the content that I wanted them to create their slam poems on. So we looked at different types of text in that food for thought unit, so looking at persuasive text, mainly food reviews. We even looked at some poetry based around food, before we started our slam poem.

Narrator

By recycling the language, text forms, and text features of the previous unit of teaching and learning, the teacher reduces the language demands of the current unit for the EAL/D learners. Using the language and content from prior learning ensures that all students have the same background knowledge and skills and creates a learning environment in which EAL/D learners have equal access to success. The teacher also considers what all students bring to learning.

Classroom teacher

The reason I chose slam poetry is because I knew that it was a loose structure. I knew that we could play around with, you know, how many words could be in a slam poem or lines in a slam poem. We could play around with gesture. And I know that most students when they're trying to say a word and or express a line sometimes they can't do that in a written form, but they can do that in an acting form or physical form. So gestures was something that they really flourished in and thrived in with the slam poetry.

Narrator

By knowing your students and having what they know and can do firmly in mind when programming and planning, allows you to develop culturally inclusive teaching and learning sequences in which all students can have their talent developed.

Narrator

Teachers at Canley Vale High School are passionate about finding the potential and developing the talent of all their students. In this illustration of practice, we will see two teachers working together to plan support for Year 7 EAL/D learners. The EAL/D learners need to develop English language proficiency so they can show their talent in the Creative domain.

Head Teacher English

The Year 7 students are working on a Geography unit called Liveability, and the classroom teacher has designed these creative scenarios where the students have to read the scenario and decide what the problem of the scenario is, and then develop a question, a driving question, that will, help them to come up with their own project. What do you think the students may need if they're responding to, for example, this first scenario? Are there some things that we need to think about, for the students whose language is still developing?

EAL/D specialist teacher

The classroom teacher could be connecting related concepts rather than teaching the words in isolation. The classroom teacher allows the students as a class to brainstorm ideas that is related to the topic.

Narrator

The EAL/D teacher suggests using brainstorming as a strategy for teaching new vocabulary and context.

Head Teacher English

Some of them are still at the Developing phase of their language proficiency, and we think maybe they need a bit of support because they might need help to use language to evaluate their ideas and understand the question that's being asked of them. Do you have some suggestions about what that might look like for the classroom teacher?

EAL/D specialist teacher

It is very important that the classroom teacher really unpacks the Tier 3 language or the academic language. The teacher should not assume that the students actually know these words that are associated to liveability. So for example, if we look at community, because a lot of our students again they come from the Developing phase of English, community to for them would be quite different if we're looking for like, subject specific area which is we're looking for Geography. So in saying that it is very important that the classroom teacher really unpacks the Tier 3 language or the academic language, maybe even providing visuals so that the students can understand these terminologies, and then use it in a very meaningful way.

Narrator

The strategies to support understanding of subject specific and academic language include explicit teaching of these words and use of visuals to support comprehension.

EAL/D specialist teacher

Actually, Peta, another strategy that classroom teachers may use is translating the English language into their home language and in our case, it will be Vietnamese. It is quite important that the students also have access to the home language because that way when they see the translated version or the glossary definition they have access to the content or if not the concept.

Head Teacher English

Sarah, you're suggesting that the classroom teacher use home language to help support that conceptual understanding of some of the key vocabulary for the Geography unit. Yeah, and they'll understand the concept.

EAL/D specialist teacher

Yeah, that's right.

Head Teacher English

Yeah. Okay, that makes sense.

EAL/D specialist teacher

What it basically means is that by providing all these EAL/D strategies to our learners and the teachers as well language isn't a barrier to the talent development for our HPG EAL/D learners.

Narrator

To support the English language development of high potential and gifted EAL/D learners, the teachers discussed a range of strategies which support EAL/D learners. These strategies included brainstorming; unpacking of Tier 3 vocabulary; use of home language; and bilingual glossaries. All students have potential, including EAL/D learners, and the students should be afforded the same opportunities as their English-speaking peers to have their Creative potential recognised. By collaborating with EAL/D specialist teachers, we can implement teaching strategies which simultaneously develop language proficiency and talent.