Picture the scene: you’re in a classroom, the teacher is talking a foreign language and you only understand every tenth word or so.

Suddenly the teacher stops talking and everyone around you happily starts working on some exercise that’s just been set that you have no idea about. What on earth are they doing? What should you be doing?

This stuff-of-nightmare scenario can be the reality for pupils at international schools if English is not their first language.

This is when an English as an additional language (EAL) intervention is called for.

EAL interventions are an area I have researched for the International Journal of Advanced Research and there are some best practices that emerged that international teachers should know around when to spot if an EAL intervention is required, and how to do it well.

Why you should use an EAL intervention

There are many circumstances in which an EAL intervention becomes necessary.

It is generally up to you, as a classroom teacher or a support staff member, to notice this and it is something you should always be on the lookout for. Some key indicators are:

• The student’s English language skills are clearly below the level of their peers. 
• The student’s grades are falling behind. This could be due to the student’s inability to access the curriculum due to language deficiency. 
• The student does not communicate with you or their peers and is not integrating into the classroom well. This could be down to their lack of language confidence.
• The student’s grades in subjects that do not require English language skills are far beyond their grades in subjects that do require English language skills. This usually shows they have some understanding of the content if unhindered by a language barrier. This is typically noticeable in maths or during project-based learning.
• The student does not understand how to complete tasks that have been set for them. This could be a result of their inability to understand what you are saying.

While these are not the only indicators, they are some of the main causes for you to investigate a little further and make a judgment as to whether this student needs an EAL intervention.  

For example, I was doing some lessons at The British School of Nanjing and spotted these issues with a grade 5 pupil from Korea. He needed all of the extra help in almost every subject except maths (during which he was coaching his peers after he had finished all three levels of a task).

Clearly his ability wasn’t an issue, but the language in other lessons was holding him back.

How you should use an intervention

If you decide an EAL intervention is required then you have two options open to you: a “push-in” intervention or a “pull-out” intervention.

Push-in is where you try to incorporate the intervention into the lessons.

Pull-out is where you remove the student from the classroom and run the intervention separately.

Overall, the literature suggests pull-out interventions are more successful but you must be careful the students do not fall behind on the curriculum goals and are not stigmatised for this within their peer group)

There are some fundamentals to an EAL intervention. These are the things you really need to have in place if you want to run a successful one:

• A cumulative structure - the language in the intervention should be cumulative and build from the base up; a house should be built on solid grounding. 
• Tailored learning goals for students - you can use learner profiles if this is possible in your context.
• Proper leadership - somebody who understands EAL students’ needs should be leading the intervention.
• Training for staff beforehand - throwing staff in at the deep end with no training is a bad idea. Often techniques like grading speech or proper use of imagery and body language are not well known to teachers who have not had to use them before. 
• Points of reflection to ensure progress is occurring - rather than seeing if things have worked at the end of the process, there should be moments along the way that provide an opportunity to check things are going well (essentially a formative assessment of the intervention).

Overall, your students’ needs will dictate to you exactly how to approach an EAL intervention.

Do they work?

In a word, yes!

EAL interventions can work very well. During my research, the average pass percentage at first attempt for the Primary Stage Entrance Test was 30.461 per cent.

By the mid-term of the EAL (four weeks later), and after specific EAL-interventions, the students’ average result was 64 per cent (more than double). At the final exam (nine weeks later), it had increased again to 81.384 per cent.

So keep your eyes open for students that need the help, and spend the time ensuring that you help them as best you can. The impact can be huge.

Gregory Adam is a primary teacher at Nord Anglia Chinese International School in Shanghai. He released his first book last year, Teaching EFL, ESL & EAL. A Practitioner’s Guide