Investigation
Work with some other teachers in your school to conduct a stocktake of how you compare with the statements of best practice below.
- Tick off the statements that describe your current practices.
- Identify some statements where your practices need fine-tuning and further development.
- Plan how and when you can initiate some of the remaining practices. Some big changes can be begun in a small way by doing something a little differently, just in your syndicate or class.
- Try out a small new development for a week or two.
- Meet again with the other teachers and report on how your students responded.
Best practice statements for mainstream schools with bilingual Pasifika students
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Major categories of best practice statements |
Specific characteristics of best practice |
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1. Inclusive school |
1. School practices and policies are inclusive of all the school’s languages and cultures. |
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2. Collaborative links are made with Pasifika families and communities, and schools build on these links as resources for learning. |
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2. Whole-school alignment |
3. The goals, resources, and pedagogical practices of school programmes for English as an additional language (EAL) , English Language Learner (ELL), or English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) are aligned with curriculum and school activities. |
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3. Appropriate goals for learning and assessment |
4. Language learning and assessment is systematic, comprehensive, regular, and meaningful to learners and their families and communities. |
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5. Goals for bilingual Pasifika students are age-appropriate and are not limited to performance in easier contexts or on easier objectives. |
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6. Bilingual Pasifika students are encouraged to develop their Pasifika languages wherever possible. |
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4. General teaching and learning practices |
7. Pedagogical practices enable classes and other learning groupings to work as inclusive and cohesive learning communities. |
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8. Teachers build constructively on learning strategies and practices from all the students’ language and cultural backgrounds and educational contexts. |
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9. All students are taught to be skilled learners who take an active part in managing their own learning. The pedagogy used promotes positive learning orientations, student self-regulation, the development of metacognitive strategies, and thoughtful discussion. |
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5. Curriculum-related and language-related practices |
10. Students are given substantial exposure to English language input about curriculum-related topics. Pasifika language input is also provided for bilingual Pasifika students, to the greatest extent possible. (See the inquiry Affirming Pasifika languages in the mainstream for ideas about how to do this.) |
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11. Bilingual Pasifika students have substantial opportunities to speak and write in extended curriculum contexts, both in English and in their Pasifika languages. (See the inquiry Affirming Pasifika languages in the mainstream for ideas about how to do this.) |
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12. Students are given learning opportunities that allow for significant recycling of language and content. There are planned opportunities for repetition of new vocabulary and other language features, and expansion of the way they are used in different contexts. |
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13. Students are scaffolded in learning the language needed in curriculum contexts to facilitate their further progress in developing language accuracy, fluency, and complexity, as well as in curriculum learning. |
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14. Students receive appropriate and sufficient feedback on both their language learning and their curriculum learning. |
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15. Bilingual Pasifika students are given explicit and focused instruction for English language development. |
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6. Content of language learning |
16. Teachers consider the content of English language learning for their bilingual Pasifika students and consult with colleagues who have relevant expertise, such as ESOL teachers or advisers and teachers or advisers who speak a Pasifika language. Where possible, they base their decisions on research into second language learning in school contexts. |
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17. Schools consider whether they can provide learning programmes in Pasifika languages for their bilingual Pasifika students (and others), using the curriculum documents for Sāmoan, Cook Islands Māori, Tongan, and Niue language (and bearing in mind that these are intended primarily for L2 learning rather than for L1 maintenance and development). |
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18. Vocabulary development is targeted, especially in the area of academic vocabulary, and bilingual Pasifika students are encouraged to use both their languages to discuss curriculum-related concepts. |
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19. Bilingual Pasifika students encounter an appropriate range of texts in both their languages. |
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(Adapted from Franken and McComish, 2005, Figure 2.)
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