New Arrivals in the classroom – 5 tips

Welcome the child to your class

Find out as much as you can about the his/her previous education (strengths and weaknesses)

Use the buddy system

You might need to do a Mother tongue assessment (see assessment page)

Arrange a reading programme

To get started, make some useful phrase cards

And here is a link to Wokingham LA New arrivals toolkit

Most teachers would agree that no two new arrivals are alike in terms of previous education and language history, which is why providing a course for new arrivals is so difficult.  However below is a short induction course for new arrivals, covering basic vocabulary, reading and writing which can be used in conjunction with any published course.

New Arrivals Course

• Going for a walk
• Brixton Market beginner English
• My Special Weekend  St Ives
• My Special Weekend Cromer
• Flowers and Veg
• Extreme sports slide show  

Reading for beginners

Good reading books readers should be fairly easy to read with plenty of visual clues to the text; age appropriate and multi ethnic. The story line should confront dilemmas, which can then be discussed. Some suggestions for readers can be found here.

Current research in Lambeth indicates that new arrivals from abroad often learn English very rapidly and to a high level – if they have had a good education in their home country and are given opportunities to  transfer existing linguistic and study skills at school in London.  Here are a range of lesson ideas for use with older beginners:

•   starter ideas to accompany any published scheme
• Sentence builders and spelling guides
• Greetings and Families
• What is in my sandwich
• London sights vocabulary builder
• Football in Brazil
• Benfica

• Skills Workshop free downloadable worksheets including simple comprehension and grammar https://www.skillsworkshop.org/