EDUC 5199 TESOL Approaches and Strategies Assignment 1: Essay Man Jin 110158709

Analysis of EAL/D teaching and learning based on an EAL/D lesson

Because of the complex Australian context, issues of teaching and learning English as an additional
language or dialect (EAL/D) either in mainstream class or as additional support have been broadly
debated in Australia. A large amount of studies and research have been conducted to examine the
characteristics of EAL/D teaching and learning as well as explore effective approaches and
strategies for implementing effective EAL/D teaching and learning practices. In recent years,
Australian government have provided some educational programs such as a New Arrivals Program
(NAP) to facilitate EAL/D teaching and learning. This essay will firstly discuss different
characteristics of EAL/D teaching and learning environment that may have impact on the teaching
strategies used to meet learner needs. Secondly, take a video lesson as a starting point, this essay
will describe the EAL/D learning context. Then based on the video lesson, an overview of the
lesson plan will be presented and the usefulness of the approaches and resources used for the lesson
will be discussed. Finally, how a range of learning technologies have been and could be
incorporated into the lesson to promote positive learning outcomes will be explored.

Factors influencing EAL/D teaching approaches used to address learner needs

There are some characteristics of an EAL/D learning environment that may influence the teaching
approaches and strategies used to address learner needs. Firstly, some internal factors in regards to
teachers and learners in the EAL/D classroom may affect teachers' choice of strategies and EAL/D
students' learning. For example, in order to implement effective EAL/D teaching, teacher may use
different approaches based on their understanding of students' learning needs (ACARA 2014).
However, these learning needs may be varied because of learner's age, learning goals and learners'
diverse educational context etc.. Wang (2014, p. 28) states that age can be a factor that has
significant influence on the use of language learning strategies and language development because
learners' cognitive ability and cognitive style, which have impact on the use and development of
learning strategies directly, are increasing and changing along with age. Harmer (2007, p. 83)
further discusses that take adolescent learners as an example, most of students in adolescence may
understand the need for learning, make learning goals and take responsibility of their learning but
they are searching for identity through life and learning experience and prefer the teachers who
know them well. This implies that when teaching students of this age period, teachers may use the
teaching approaches which show protection of their self-esteem and make learners feel they are
valued. Allied to this, learner's educational backgrounds and learning purpose play considerable
roles as well. For instance, ACARA (2014, p. 8) shows that there is noticeable diversity in EAL/D

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EDUC 5199 TESOL Approaches and Strategies Assignment 1: Essay Man Jin 110158709

students' educational backgrounds. Considering those who have limited previous schooling or
educational experience as some refugee learners in NAP, they may be unfamiliar with the purposes
for reading and writing and have lower language proficiency (ACARA 2014, p.8). This indicates
that they may rely heavily on teacher's support and more explicit instructions and direct visual cues
may be more effective for them. Furthermore, some external factors such as class size may have
impact on the use of EAL/D teaching strategies. According to Harmer (2007, p.122), the techniques
that the teacher uses are relate to the number of students in the class to some extent. This can be
understand through the examples that when teaching a big class, it may be more efficient to
organise pairwork or group work to promote opportunities to speak during a lesson while in a small
class, individual student talking time can be maximised through discussion in the whole class or
one-to-one conversation. It seems that both internal and external factors of EAL/D learning
environment may have impact on the teaching strategies used to address learner needs and they
should be taken into consideration when planning and sequencing EAL/D teaching and learning
experience.

Analysis and discussion of an EAL/D lesson

The discussion and analysis of an EAL/D class that will be presented in this essay is based on a
session of a video lesson. And a simple lesson plan has been created according to the video lesson
as well (see Appendix 1). The class in the video is from a NAP of a senior college in Australia. It
shows in the video that in the class there are approximately 15 students who may be in year 9 or 10
and there are more girls than boys. Based on the purpose of the NAP, the students in the class are
newly arrived immigrants including migrants, refugees and non-English speaking background
students who may have limited knowledge as well as literacy skills of the English language and
they probably attend the class to develop their written, spoken, listening and comprehension skills
in the English language and prepare for living and studying in the Australian community. The
teacher in the video is a native speaker and experienced teacher of the English language.

According to the lesson plan (see Appendix 1) of the session teaching, the main focus of the lesson
are two text types in terms of recounts and reports and the differences between them. Students are
expected to understand the purposes, structures and language features of recounts and reports
respectively and identify the differences between a recount and a repot through comparison of their
own recount and a model text of a report. The main task of the lesson is writing a recount in a group
based on their individual recount about the experience to the Adelaide Royal Show. It is indicated in
the ACARA (2014) that as one of the linguistic factors that may influence EAL/D students' learning,

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EDUC 5199 TESOL Approaches and Strategies Assignment 1: Essay Man Jin 110158709

different text types, their purposes and the language features used require to be taught explicitly
across the curriculum areas to support EAL/D learners in their understanding of different genres as
well as improvement of English literature skills. Moreover, it can be seen that there are basically
four stages of the session in terms of 'Setting the context, Modeling and deconstructing, Joint
construction and Independent construction', which follows the Teaching and Learning Cycle (TLC)
and uses a systematic and explicit approach to teach writing (DECD 2014). TLC refers to a
framework for systematically and explicitly scaffolding students' genre writing skill, through which
students take genre learning responsibility gradually and move towards a point where they can
construct a text of a particular genre independently (DECD 2014). It also can be seen as a
programming tool for EAL/D teachers to plan and sequence teaching and learning experience, with
a focus on language and literacy as it is shown in the lesson plan.

Considering the main stages of the lesson, the first part is 'Setting the context' (see Appendix 1). In
this section, the teacher discusses with students about the experiences of the excursion to the
Adelaide Royal Show and the activities they did there by asking a series questions such as 'When
did we go?', 'Where did we go?' and 'What did we do?' There may be at least two purpose of this
section. One is to activate students' prior knowledge about the excursion to build shared knowledge
and context for writing a recount and another is introducing the target genre, recounts, in the context.
It can be seen that there are some EAL/D teaching approaches that the teacher uses in this section.
Firstly, it is suggested in ACARA (2014, p. 24) that effective teaching and learning build on share
knowledge and understandings and real life experience and excursions can be essential tools for
building shared knowledge and setting context for following learning activities. Furthermore, it is
also embedded with Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approaches in the way that real
information exchanging is promoted and using language within a real communicative context is
encouraged (Richards 2006, p. 16; Beale 2002, p. 13; Harmer 2007, p. 69). In this way, EAL/D
students may find it easier to make connection with learning activities and materials so that learning
of language is more meaningful and purposeful for them. Moreover, the teacher uses approaches of
explicit instruction to promote class discussion of the learning context. As fundamental elements of
explicit instruction listed in Archer and Hughes' (2011, p. 3) study, the teacher use questioning to
involve a high level of student-teacher interaction and provide immediate feedback to students'
responses. In this way, the content may be sequenced logically and broken down into more
manageable instructional units to match with learners' cognitive capabilities (Archer & Hughes
2011, p. 3). It seems that the teacher selects and adopts various approaches and strategies in the first
teaching stage to provide supports and scaffolding EAL/D learners' learning outcome.

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EDUC 5199 TESOL Approaches and Strategies Assignment 1: Essay Man Jin 110158709

The second stage of the lesson is 'Modeling/deconstructing' (see Appendix 1) in which sections
models of target genres are provided to help students deconstruct the text. The teacher uses posters
as a visual aid to help students understand the purposes, structures and language features of recounts
and reports. During the discussion about the target genres, the teacher also uses cue cards and
asking questions to encourage students to reflect on their oral production of a recount before. Then
a model text of reports is provided for students to compare with the recount they have got in order
to help students examine and identify the differences of social purposes, structures and language
features between the two genres. There are some effective EAL/D teaching approaches involved in
this section. Taking the activity of comparison of two genres as an example, research and studies
indicate that teaching of critical aspects in the writing process explicitly by including models and
giving clear instruction in teaching writing conventions across different genres are effective
practices in teaching expressive writing techniques to students (Archer & Hughes 2011, p. 16).
Moreover, the use of posters and cue cards which shows key content summary of structure and
language features of focus genres may provide text frameworks and visual supports for essential
concepts and key words so that all students can access the gist of information. These can be seen as
scaffolding and support strategies which underpin effective teaching and learning for EAL/D
students (ACARA 2014). It seems that through this process, learners' control in using particular
language features and metalanguage skills are developed.

Next, the third and the last parts of the sample lesson are 'Joint construction of the text' and
'Independent construction phase '(see Appendix 1). In the third stage of the lesson, students produce,
analyse, identify and circle the language features of a recount with the teacher together. And finally
in the independent construction phase, students work in groups, discuss and complete a recount
based on their individual recount. Through this process, the teacher and learners construct a text
related to the topic together, revisit features of the target genres when it is necessary and explore
some rules for processes and circumstances. The teacher uses the computer-based presentation
equipment and the white board as tools for implementing collaborative discussion with learners,
which can be considered as effective presentation aids to provide a motivating focal point during
whole-class activity (Harmer 2007, p. 183). Allied to this, the group work of text construction may
provide opportunities for using language purposely, meaning negotiating, giving and accepting
feedback among peers which may promote learners' communicative competence (Richards 2006).
As it is demonstrated in ACARA (2014, p. 26) that it is important that EAL/D students require not
only explicit teaching but also teaching grammatical functions in context. The example can be seen
in the lessen video that the teacher uses approaches of explicit teaching when drawing attention to

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EDUC 5199 TESOL Approaches and Strategies Assignment 1: Essay Man Jin 110158709

the specific tenses and language features required in the texts and encouraging students to examine
and consolidate understanding of tense within the texts.

Based on the analysis of the sample lesson, it seems that effective and useful EAL/D teaching
approaches, strategies and resources have been used for the lesson. However, there still can be a
discussion about the way to improve. A range of learning technologies may be incorprated into the
lesson to promote positive learning outcomes. For example, the overhead projector (OHP) can be
used to present students' individual piece of writing as an example which may shows some common
problems or well written sentences and high quality ideas directly. In this way , the whole class
becomes involved in seeing and discussing about the issues of the writing task and OHT provides
the possibility of showing well-printed materials and scripts as well (Harmer 2007, p. 185).
Similarly, some presentation software, such as PowerPoint, and the interactive whiteboard could be
used to mix text and visuals with pictures and audio tracks which may motivate students' interests,
connection and engagement in the class activities and tasks if they are used appropriately (Harmer
2007, p. 187). It implies that there are possibilities of incorporate some learning technologies
effectively into the lesson to offer opportunities for interactions, promote engagement and enhance
learning outcomes.

In conclusion, there are several characteristics of EAL/D learning environment that influence the
teaching strategies such as class size, learners' age and diversity in educational backgrounds.
Especially when referring to an EAL/D class in the NAP, it can be seen from the analysis of the
sample lesson that some unique EAL/D teaching strategies, such as explicit instruction and teaching,
communicative language teaching etc., are chosen to meet EAL/D learners' needs. However, some
other learning technologies such as OHP and Smartboard could be incorporated to enhance learning
outcomes. Considering the discussion and analysis in this essay is based on one particular lesson in
the NAP, more studies and research need to be conducted for further discussion.

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EDUC 5199 TESOL Approaches and Strategies Assignment 1: Essay Man Jin 110158709

References
Archer, AL & Hughes, CA 2011, 'Exploring the foundations of explicit instruction', Explicit
instruction: effective and efficient teaching, The Guilford Press, New York, pp. 1-22.

Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) 2014, English as an

additional language or dialect teacher resource: EAL/D overview and advice, ACARA, Australia.

Beale, J 2002, 'Is communicative language teaching a thing of the past?', Babel, vol. 37, no. 1, pp.
12-38.

Department for Education and Child Development (DECD) 2014, English as an additional
language or dialect: designing, teaching and learning, and assessment cycle, Government of South
Australia, Australia.

Harmer, J 2007, The practice of English language teaching, 4th edn, Pearson/Longman, Harlow,
England.

Richards, JC 2006, Communicative language teaching today, Cambridge University Press, New
York.

Wang, X 2014, 'On factors influencing EFL learning strategies', Studies in Literature and Language,
vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 28-23.