Lesson 3 of 7 · 6 min · 8-card deck

Supporting pupils with English as an Additional Language

Practical strategies for the increasing number of EAL learners in UK classrooms.

EAL pupils are now around 20% of the school population in England — and far higher in some areas. They are not a homogenous group: a pupil who has lived in the UK since age 2 has very different needs from one who arrived last term. Your first job is to know where each EAL pupil is on the proficiency scale.

Crucially, EAL is not SEND. Many EAL pupils ultimately outperform their monolingual peers. They typically need 5–7 years to develop the academic language proficiency needed for full curriculum access — even if they appear conversationally fluent within 2 years.

Active recall flashcards

Work through every card. Try to answer in your head before flipping — the act of retrieving is what builds durable memory.

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Practice scenario

A teacher provides a Year 7 EAL pupil with a key vocabulary list (with a translation column) and a paragraph writing frame. The pupil writes the same paragraph as her classmates — covering the same content — using the scaffolds. Over the term, the scaffolds gradually fade.

Try this in your classroom

Identify each EAL pupil's proficiency level — don't assume.
Use visuals, sentence starters and writing frames to scaffold language.
Allow first-language discussion before English production.
Maintain high expectations — scaffold the language, not the content.