‘Eliciting EAL Learner’s Prior Knowledge’ EAL Strategy: Explanation and Rationale

Every learner arrives at every lesson with a wealth of experience, knowledge and understanding.

The difficulty for teachers is twofold.

First, trying to gauge what exactly each learner knows and how they know it, and second, helping learners to build on this.

It is always worth the effort.

Learning is like constructing a house. You must be sure the foundations are sound so that later trouble is avoided.

It is also like catching fish. If you can hook learners with something they are already familiar with, then you’ve got them!

In any situation, it is better to elicit prior knowledge than to plough on regardless.

Things are no different when working with EAL learners.

Learners who are developing their abilities in English are just as likely to have a wide range of knowledge, experience and understanding as anyone else.

This might be more difficult for them to convey – or you to elicit – because of the potential language barriers, but it can still be drawn out and used to help both the learner and the teacher.

Having said that, there are areas of the curriculum about which learners learning English as an additional language may know little.

Or even next to nothing.

An example would be a learner who has moved countries and is near the beginning of the language development continuum.

It is unlikely that such a learner would have encountered the history of the English-speaking country in which they are now living.

They may know a great deal about the history of the country from which they have come, but perhaps not a lot about the history of their new country.

Ascertaining unfamiliarity is as important as discovering understanding.

In both cases you are gaining information you can use to help the learner.

Eliciting EAL Learner’s Prior Knowledge: Example One

When starting a new topic, ask learners to make a spider diagram containing everything they can think of relating to a relevant keyword.

When they have done this, ask them to explain their spider diagrams to one another, before sharing their ideas with the rest of the class.

If learners cannot read or write English, provide them with a picture instead of a keyword.

Show them what a spider diagram looks like and then invite them to create their own using words from their first language.

You will immediately gain an understanding of whether the learner is familiar with the topic or not.

And if your phone has the function, you can hover above the words they write and instantly translate them into English.

This will further develop your understanding of the learner’s prior knowledge.

Eliciting EAL Learner’s Prior Knowledge: Example Two

If you have a member of staff, or an older learner, in school who can speak the first language of your EAL learner, ask them to have a discussion with the learner about what they have previously studied.

This need not take a great deal of time and could be conducted using a set of questions you develop.

Once the discussion is over (and you might want to sit-in on it), the translator can explain what the learner has said.

This process will help you picture more accurately in your own mind what the EAL learner’s prior schooling was like.

Eliciting EAL Learner’s Prior Knowledge: Example Three

Use assessment for learning techniques to elicit information from your EAL learners about what they already know.

Here are three examples:

• Set up a series of discussion questions. Circulate through the class and focus your attention on your EAL learners. Can they engage in discussion? If so, what do they know? What are they sharing with their peers?
• Do a knowledge dump with your learners. This is where you give them 90 seconds to write down everything that comes into their head when they think about a certain topic. They can do this on a piece of paper or on a mini-whiteboard. Even if your EAL learner writes nothing, that is still information. It shows you they either haven’t understood or have no relevant prior knowledge about the topic.
• Begin a new unit of work with a low-stakes test. The purpose is to assess the prior knowledge of all learners, with specific focus on those for whom English is an additional language. By doing a test at the beginning, you generate a useful cache of data you can use to inform future planning.

You may need to modify your chosen techniques to take account of the specific requirements of your EAL learners, but the logic underpinning the activities will remain the same.