Critical Friend Conversations
What?
● We noticed that several of our English
as an Additional Language (EAL)
students are disengaged, chronically
arriving late to school, and not going to
class when they are here.
● Several teachers were questioning how
best to support them.
● On term 1 report cards, we were not
noticing any appreciable gains.
So What?
● My critical friend is our EAL teacher.
She also has the advantage of
speaking the first language of these
students, so has become the conduit
for communication between home and
school.
● We agreed to have her share some
strategies during a Teacher Support
Team (TST) meeting with their
teachers.
● The biggest concern is how to support
these students in their language
acquisition when secondary teachers
are not trained in phonics or whole
language instruction.
Now What?
● We started with a meeting with parents,
with the EAL teacher acting as
interpreter. We emphasized the
importance of being in school, learned
more about the students’ interests, and
developed a plan to better support the
students.
● Teachers have been provided with a
bank of strategies to use.
● We discussed release time for teachers
to develop programming, visit
elementary language classrooms, and
work one on one with the EAL teacher
for content specific programming.
● We have set a goal to engage our EAL
students more regularly and with
intention in discussions, building their
oral language skills before focussing on
reading and writing, much like the
neurolinguistic approach for French
language learners.
● The office administration will also
provide one on one support for these
students to support their language
acquisition, including letter and sound
activities, basic math concepts, and
developing sight word recognition.