Lunch Break Ramblings

I'm back! After almost a week of no blog posts, I've gotten to a place where work, health and internet have all aligned and I'm on top of my game again.

I've got forty minutes to chat; I wolfed my lunch, as we supply teachers are apt to do, and escaped to the sanctity of the computer room.

Going to share some unfiltered/unorganised thoughts on the integration of EFL/ESL children into the British school systems.

Okay, it came as a huge shock when I found out that 40 - 60% of the children entering into Year One will not be able to speak English. Teachers just aren't equipped (with supplies, aides, materials or funds) to deal with such an large number of non-English students when the curriculum and administrative pressures dictate a learning environment that is completely English-centred. The curriculum is so teacher-directed, so lecture-based that no wonder these children struggle!

It took me a long time to realise that when a certain selection of my nursery or year one children were acting out while I was instructing, or if they wouldn't do the task as described, chances are they weren't able to understand much of what I was telling them. They are learn to be good imitators - following the lead of other children in other situations so that I, as a supply teacher, wouldn't know they couldn't understand unless I talked to them one-on-one. Even then, they were quick to use "yes" and "no" and "sorry!" without hearing what I was asking or saying. What a frustrating experience - for everyone.

More than that, 40 - 60% of all the children in a British school will not have English as their native language. There has been this huge influx of immigrants, drastically changing the demographic of London, yet in many of the 50+ schools I've been at, there doesn't seem to be an acknowledge of this fact. It seems to be swept under the classroom carpet.

Something has got to change.