Dominion Road School has a large number of culturally and linguistically diverse learners. When new learners are enrolled, principal Lesley Mitchell takes them and their family on a tour of the school, and the child meets their new teacher.
The tour always includes a look at the school's language board, which includes photos of all staff and students who are fluent speakers of particular languages. The language board has been deliberately placed at the eye level of young children, and children often come to look at the language board if they wish to see who in the school can speak their first language.
Dominion Road School language board.
All fluent speakers of a language (students and staff) are represented.
Lesley spoke about the focus on "know your learner" and the school's decision to change to specific "know the learner" meetings in the first term.
Lesley said,
"Teachers are encouraged to speak less and listen more. They have prompt questions, and the aim is to find out what children's interests are and what parents want for their child. Teachers loved this approach."
The school employs a number of paraprofessionals who assist with supporting learners. In the year 3/4 team most support takes place within the classroom environment. Last year, the school made a decision to reinstate an ESOL space for junior learners in a spot between two busy collaborative learning environments to provide the option to also work with individuals and small groups in a quieter space when needed.
ESOL learning space.
Experienced learning assistant Colleen Merrylees (below) sometimes works with new learners of English in the ESOL space and also provides support in the classroom environment.
Colleen works with a new learner of English.
Paraprofessionals Colleen and Janis, together with ESOL leader Beth and classroom teacher Sohini have recently been involved in the TALL (Team Approach to Language Learners) project.
Sohini Bhattacharya, Janis Blake, Beth Van der Loeff and Colleen Merrylees.
TALL is a school-based professional development opportunity led by experienced ESOL facilitator Gaylene Price, University of Canterbury Education Plus. The project supports a team of up to six participants to focus on and build school systems of support and knowledge for the teaching of culturally and linguistically diverse learners. TALL builds a core of expertise which can be shared school-wide.
The Ministry of Education funds the project facilitation and online content, and contributes towards the release days required for the classroom teachers to attend face-to-face workshops. The project involves a 20 week (two term) focus and includes face-to-face workshops, online modules, data analysis and a framework of inquiry and reflection.
Participating in TALL has enabled the teachers and teaching assistants at Dominion Road to:
Colleen, one of the paraprofessionals involved in TALL, said that she had found the project inspiring. She spoke about the use of visual pathways, and strategies for really knowing a word, such as dictogloss and concept circles.
Lesley, the principal, who has a Grad Dip TESSOL, highlighted the value of tapping into the expertise of the school's TESSOL trained teacher, and working to ensure that all teachers understand the importance of not making assumptions, of scaffolding and of recycling language.
There will be four TALL networks in 2020 in Auckland, Christchurch, Hamilton, and Tauranga.
For additional information about TALL, please contact senior advisor: ESOL, Kirsty MacDiarmid, phone: 09 632 9368, email: [email protected]
Published on: 03 Oct 2019
