General information:

This project investigates how the science and language learning of children for whom English is not their first language can be further enhanced and supported in state primary schools in the UK.

Collaborators:

Lancaster University (Dr. Oksana Afitska, Lead Researcher, Linguistics and English Language)
Sheffield City Council (Ms. Jenny Smith, EAL Advisor, EMTAS)

Participants:

Five state primary schools in Sheffield area with varied density of children with English as an additional language (i.e. children for whom English not their first language).

Duration:

2 years (September 2013 – September 2015)

Timeline:

Core aims:

(a) to develop and introduce science and language specific materials to further support and scaffold the learning of science by non-native speakers of English,

(b) to enhance teachers’ awareness of such learners’ science and language learning needs and enhance their teaching and assessment practices in this respect,

(c) to establish a community of teachers involved in teaching science to ethnic minority children across schools in order to facilitate the exchange of good practice and to facilitate future collaboration,

(d) to create an online comprehensive resource-pool (interactive website) of materials developed by the teachers across various schools for wider use by the teachers community, and

(e) to increase parental involvement in the support of learning science and language out of school.