Regional Interest Groups (RIGs) are NALDIC’s way of engaging directly with local teaching and learning communities up and down the country. Dianne Excell, national RIGs coordinator, reports on what our flourishing network of RIGs has been up to recently.
Category: EAL
Language Diversity and Educational attainment of Eastern European pupils in primary schools in England
Feyisa Demie is an Honorary Fellow at Durham University and head of research for school self-evaluation at Lambeth Local Authority. In this post he summarises his research paper that breaks down linguistic background data and attainment in Key Stage 2 …
Family Skills: improving EAL learner’s literacy through family involvement
Fatima Husain and Sarah Frankenburg of NatCen Social Research were independent evaluators on a recent Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) trial of the Family Skills programme. Family Skills was designed to support academic progress in young EAL learners with family involvement …
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Talking about teaching bilingual children: Encounters with difference
The EAL Journal blog publishes plain language summaries of EAL-related Master’s and Doctoral research. In this post Judith Flynn, Ed. D., Associate Lecturer in Education at Manchester Metropolitan University and EAL specialist, presents a summary of her doctoral thesis on pedagogic discourse among …
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One Year On: Making the Switch to EAL in an International School
In November of last year Paul Barry, EAL Specialist at Shrewsbury International School in Bangkok, Thailand wrote a post for EALJournal.org exploring questions that a teacher considering working in the international sector might want to ask abut the role. You …
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Extending vocabulary with LIPs
Mallory Henson is Principal Educational Psychologist in Milton Keynes Educational Psychology Service, and Chelsea Moore is a Psychology Assistant in the same team. They have recently been involved in re-launching their ‘Language Intervention Programme’ (LIPs) which aims to extend children’s …
Removal of the DfE Proficiency Scales: A missed opportunity
Naomi Flynn is Associate Professor of Primary English Education at the University of Reading. She recently conducted a study into teachers’ perceptions about policy and practice in EAL. One of the key findings was that policy enactment in practice may be …
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New School Year – New Season of NALDIC blogging
It’s the start of the new school year and NALDIC is back with a new season on the blog. We hope that your summer was everything that you wanted it to be and that you are ready to hit the …
“I hold all the dreams of the world within me”
Sara Moodie is Head of the EAL team in Jersey. In this post, contemplative, searching and uplifting by turns, Sara describes accompanying Portuguese heritage pupils to the Youth Parliament in Lisbon. She uses the experience to reflect on what it …
EAL Journal 
NALDIC’s Response to New Research on English Proficiency Assessment
Last month Oxford University, The Bell Foundation and Unbound Philanthropy published a research study that used data collected as a part of the now rescinded requirement for school to assess and report English language proficiency in the school census. The …
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