EAL Department · Week 4 of 6
Week 4: Connect talk, reading and writing
Create purposeful opportunities to encounter language, work with its meaning, rehearse it and use it to show subject understanding.
Your guiding question
How will learners meet, rehearse and use the language in a meaningful sequence?
Create purposeful opportunities to encounter language, work with its meaning, rehearse it and use it to show subject understanding.
Weekly outcome: A short lesson sequence connecting input, interaction and an individual response.
Understand the idea
Give each phase a purpose.
Before reading or listening, activate relevant knowledge and establish a question. During the input, help learners find and connect evidence. Afterwards, ask them to use that evidence in a discussion, explanation or written response. Select phases because they serve the task, not because every lesson must follow one formula.
Plan for participation in talk.
“Discuss with a partner” does not ensure everyone has a meaningful role. Provide thinking time, a clear question and a reason to listen. Invite a partner to paraphrase, request evidence or ask for clarification. Learners can use familiar languages strategically before sharing the required response in English.
Return vocabulary to use.
Select a small number of essential terms and show them in context. Revisit them in a diagram, a spoken explanation and an individual response. Check whether learners use the term to express the right meaning rather than merely recognise or copy it.
Try it in a real lesson
- Choose one short text, diagram, demonstration or source linked to your subject goal.
- Plan a brief preparation task and one question that gives the input a purpose.
- Set up partner rehearsal with clear roles: explain, then paraphrase or ask for evidence. Swap roles.
- End with an individual response. Compare it with what the learner could do before the rehearsal.
Fictional worked example
See the decisions in practice
Input
Mai and her partner look at a force diagram and read a short explanation. They underline the evidence for the conclusion and connect the wording to the arrows.
Interaction
Partner A explains the diagram. Partner B asks “Which part of the diagram supports that?” and paraphrases the answer. They swap roles using a second example. Mai may annotate or rehearse in Vietnamese before preparing her English explanation.
Individual response
Each learner explains a new diagram independently with the agreed support. In History, the same sequence can connect a source, an evidence discussion and a short judgement. In primary Maths, it can connect a picture problem, partner explanation and a recorded method.
Make your weekly record
Plan four linked moments: prepare for the input; find meaning and evidence; rehearse with a partner; produce an individual response. Add the key vocabulary, teacher prompt and evidence check for each.
Reflect on what happened
- Did every learner have a reason to speak and listen?
- What did the individual response reveal that partner work could not?
- Were the chosen words used to express subject meaning?
Discuss with a colleague
Rehearse the talk instructions with a colleague. Check that roles, timing, expected language and the final individual task are clear.
For the EAL colleague: Model a purposeful talk routine in the subject context and show how it connects to the final independent response.
For the subject teacher: Choose the evidence students should notice in the source or diagram. Agree with the EAL colleague how talk will help them explain it.
Pause and think
A learner reads the model aloud fluently but cannot explain the idea in their own words. What would you change?
Compare your thinking
Add a meaning check: connect a sentence to a diagram, choose evidence, paraphrase or explain a new example. Fluent reading aloud alone does not show understanding. Plan a supported rehearsal and then an individual transfer task.
Use these resources
Further reading: British Council: multilingual approaches in practice ↗. This week’s sequence and examples are original EAL in Practice materials.
Your week 4 record
Plan, trial and reflect
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