‘Recasting’ EAL Strategy: Explanation and Rationale

There is a fine line between giving learners guidance that helps them to improve and providing a critique that leads to a loss of confidence.

Most learners involve their ego in what happens in the classroom. Their sense of self.

To not do so is almost impossible.

Criticism, even if it is constructive, can often be taken by learners to mean failure.

Many of them do not have the means to disassociate themselves from the process of learning, nor have they the experience to take the long view (wherein difficulties are expected and accepted as a necessary part of achieving something).

With EAL learners the issue may be especially acute.

Developing their English language skills as they are, these learners are more likely to make mistakes.

That, of course, is part of learning.

But because the peers who surround them are more skilled users of English, the errors of EAL learners can appear relatively greater.

The difficulty for the teacher comes in wanting to praise and support EAL learners for the significant progress they are making, while also showing them how they might improve.

When it comes to speaking, a good method to follow is that of recasting.

This praises learners for the progress they make, provides a model of how to improve, and does so without suggesting failure.

It works as follows.

When speaking with EAL learners, listen carefully to what they say.

When you respond, comment positively (if appropriate) on the quality of what they have said.

Then, recast their words so they are correct both grammatically and in terms of meaning.

For example:

• EAL Learner: We went shops yesterday
• Teacher: Super answering of the question. When you went to the shops yesterday, what did you buy?

No critique of the learner’s words is necessary.

Modelling of the correct language use becomes part of the teacher’s response.

The EAL learner is given praise alongside a model of how to convey the same thoughts more accurately in the future.

Using this method consistently, throughout your verbal interactions with EAL learners, will lead to improvements in their speaking skills.

They will be listening to you as a role model of good English usage and be able to use your recasting to change how they speak.

As your learners grow in confidence, it may be appropriate to highlight what you are doing.

You will need to assess how useful an explicit reference will be and what impact it might have on their confidence.

If you feel happy that they have become sufficiently robust to deal positively with it, then you can proceed.

The benefit of doing so is that you will be asking learners to reflect on the differences between their own speech and the model speech you are providing.

They can then identify themselves how to close the gap.