"I don't like English; I don't like writing": A case study of EAL learner support in a secondary school in England

Davronzhon Gaipov
Suleyman Demirel University, Kazakhstan
Simon Brownhill
University of Bristol, UK

The demand for quality practice to support learners with English as an additional language (EAL) in educational settings across the globe remains ever present (Cunningham, 2020). Educators in secondary schools are constantly seeking ways to enable learners with EAL to effectively access their teaching and to succeed in all areas of the curriculum. This paper focuses on the issues that learners with EAL face in the core subject of science. Findings, drawn from original research conducted in an English secondary school, suggest that a suite of practical strategies and professional support is needed to positively address issues associated with vocabulary and writing that learners with EAL encounter. The paper recognises the significance of these findings for international contexts such as Kazakhstan that are adopting a tri-lingual system of education and who seek to embrace the model of English-medium science education in their secondary schools.
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Authors: Dr Davronzhon Gaipov (corresponding author) is an Assistant Professor in Education (Teaching and Learning) at the Faculty of Education and Humanities, and rector of Suleyman Demirel University, Kazakhstan. Specialising in pedagogy, he teaches in the MSc Education program and supervises doctoral students (EdD/PhD). His varied research and writing interests include multilingualism and multilingual education. He is one of the authors of Electronic dictionary of scientific terms in Kazakh, Russian, English and Turkish languages (registered no. 562, ИС 03346, 06.12.2007, Committee of Intellectual Properties, Republic of Kazakhstan). He attended a six-month professional training program in the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge (UK) where he specialised in teaching, curriculum and pedagogies for the 21st century. Email: davronzhon.gaipov@sdu.edu.kz Dr Simon Brownhill is a Senior Lecturer in Education (Teaching and Learning) at the School of Education, University of Bristol. Specialising in pedagogy, he teaches in the MSc Education program and supervises doctoral students (EdD/PhD). His varied research and writing interests include supporting and training adult learners, children's writing, behaviour management (ages 3-11) and men in the early years (0-8). Simon has published in high-impact peer-reviewed journals and has presented at international research conferences, serving as a keynote speaker in Ireland, Portugal and Indonesia. He is co-author of the award-winning book Men in early years settings: Building a mixed gender workforce (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2018). Email: simon.brownhill@bristol.ac.uk Please cite as: Gaipov, D. & Brownhill, S. (2021). "I don't like English; I don't like writing": A case study of EAL learner support in a secondary school in England. Issues in Educational Research, 31(3), . http://www.iier.org.au/iier31/gaipov.pdf