English language supports ‘haphazard’

ENGLISH language supports for students in second level schools are haphazard but could get even worse, experts have warned.

Research by Trinity College Dublin’s English Language Support Programme (ELSP) found that one teacher in many schools had entire responsibility for integrating newcomer children.

Less than 50 of the 85 language support teachers at 70 schools interviewed by the research team, headed by Professor David Little and Dr Zachary Lyons, said they were happy with the progress of their own newcomer students.

“In many of the schools, the provision of English language support was poorly co-ordinated, in some it was downright haphazard,” the report said.

The authors also reported that there was a widespread tendency for schools to take a “deficit” view of newcomer students’ lack of proficiency in English and to assume that they belonged in the same category as students with special educational needs.

Teachers identified the main restraints in their work as a lack of appropriate training or English language teaching materials.

Since September 2007, schools have been allowed to appoint a language support teacher for every 14 students whose first language is not English. But under cuts announced by Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe in October, support teachers will be allocated on a less generous ratio.

Prof Little said the impact of the cuts could be enormous.

“One of the biggest problems is that, while it is fine to teach general language to newcomer children, it’s far more difficult to teach the language and vocabulary specific to the different subjects,” Prof Little said.

This is one of the main areas of criticism of the report published last night, but the challenge is being eased for second-level schools by a website developed by the ELSP (www.elsp.ie).

It offers students and teachers subject-specific lessons in 10 Junior Certificate subjects. Staff at the ELSP, part of Trinity’s Immigration Initiative, are working to produce similar subject units for the Leaving Certificate curriculum.