Aniqa Leena shares findings relating to multilingual pupils’ language and literacy outcomes after our project teachers engaged with The Enduring Principles of Learning.

Just how much does a professional learning intervention for teachers using critical socio-cultural pedagogy, have an impact on their pupils’ English language and literacy progress? Following on from Naomi’s previous blog post, where she reported teachers’ responses to the intervention known as the Enduring Principles of Learning (EPL), this blog focusses on the impact of the EPL on multilingual pupils’ language and literacy development.

For readers who have been following the project, you will know we worked with four experimental teachers (who received the EPL training) and four control teachers who continued with their usual classroom practice. I was interested in whether their multilingual (also known as ‘English as an Additional Language’ or ‘EAL’) pupils, in Year 1 and Year 4, benefitted from the changes in their teachers’ practice. This was measured through test materials that were discussed in an earlier blog.

As such, there were two overarching questions I sought out to answer:

  1. What is the impact of the EPL on multilingual pupils’ speaking, listening, reading and writing skills?
  2. What are pupils’ responses to the EPL in their classrooms?

I have good news to report in response to both questions.

For ease, we’ll discuss how pupils in both year groups progressed in each skill area. But the key message revealed by the findings is that the impact of being taught by teachers who were trained with the EPL was not the same across all skill areas nor in each year group. We think that this variation in progress by age and teacher is interesting of itself because it gives us an insight into the differing needs multilingual pupils may have depending on where they are within the school system.

Language outcomes – speaking and listening

In the Year 1 speaking test, both experimental and control groups made progress, but this was greater for the pupils in our EPL classrooms.  Similarly, with regard to listening skills over time, whilst both groups made progress, the EAL pupils taught by EPL-trained teachers made greater progress than those who were taught in their usual way. Mirroring Year 1, analyses showed that experimental EAL pupils in Year 4 also made greater progress than their control school peers in both the speaking and listening tests. In brief, teachers’ adaptations to their practice using the EPL appear to have resulted in positive gains for the pupils with EAL.

Literacy outcomes – reading and writing

Reading and writing outcomes were more of a mixed picture for both year groups. Year 4 experimental EAL pupils made slightly greater progress with their reading comprehension skills in comparison to their control school peers, although this was not reflected among Year 1 pupils. For writing no measurable differences were observed in either year group.

Explaining the outcomes

Experimental pupils’ speaking and listening progress across the two year groups demonstrated that the EPL had a promising impact on the development of multilingual pupils’ English language skills. This is perhaps unsurprising, given that the creation of talk-rich classrooms (where there are ample opportunities for pupils to talk more and for teachers to talk less) is at the heart of the EPL.

It was surprising that there was not greater progress in reading comprehension given the improvement in pupils’ speaking and listening. However, this could have been for several reasons. First, let’s consider Year 1 pupils’ reading outcomes. The literature tells us that it takes younger pupils more time to understand the meaning of texts they read (comprehension) than it does to apply their knowledge of phonics to translate printed words into speech (decoding) (Raudszus et al., 2021). So, it’s perhaps no surprise that the comprehension-based reading test that featured in this study may have been particularly challenging for our younger pupils. These pupils were also impacted by other unavoidable contextual factors, such as their schooling experiences being dominated by varying home learning experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In writing there was little difference detected between control and experimental pupils’ progress over time. Interviews with pupils in Year 1 and Year 4 helped establish that writing was an area of particular challenge for multilingual learners in this study. The physical act of writing (transcription) and generating ideas for what to write (composition) were referred to as specific difficulties pupils grappled with whilst in the classroom. It is also important to note that it may have simply taken longer for the effects of the EPL intervention on pupils’ literacy skills to develop.

Whilst the interviews helped explain some of our findings related to writing, they also helped us understand what aspects of the EPL pupils found useful in the classroom. For instance, they enjoyed working in collaboration with each other and their teacher in small groups. An unexpected outcome was that the EPL approach may have helped foster a sense of security among pupils, in that the sustained opportunity to work in smaller groups helped pupils feel more confident to ask questions and make mistakes. Thus, while the writing tests may not have shown progress per se, there is evidence that the pupils had a more nuanced and positive response to the changes in classroom practice than tests can reveal. Research is needed in which the impact of the EPL on writing is observed in the longer-term.

So, what does this mean for professionals working with multilingual learners?

For those interested in multilingual pedagogy and assessment, there remains a need for appropriately designed standardised tests to assist in tracking multilingual pupils’ progress with accuracy. EAL pupils’ assessment of language and literacy remain subject to wide variation, and current practice in England often draws upon monolingually centred materials because there is simply no alternative at the moment. Our project showed that an adapted version of the WIDA materials may address this gap.

For teachers, a clearly structured and targeted professional development programme such as the EPL may develop their classroom practice in ways that might impact on aspects of their pupils’ English proficiency. Access to approaches such as the EPL is particularly important considering the persisting lack of EAL-related guidance given to teachers (both at pre-service and in-service level) in England (Oxley & de Cat, 2019).

As such, the wider findings from the Talk-Rich Teaching project suggest a promising avenue for further research into supporting the needs of EAL learners and their teachers, addressing two crucial areas: raising multilingual pupils’ English language and literacy outcomes and developing teachers’ awareness of more equitable classroom practice. Watch this space for news of our next project!

References

Oxley, E., & de Cat, C. (2021). A systematic review of language and literacy interventions in children and adolescents with English as an additional language (EAL). The Language Learning Journal, 49(3), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/09571736.2019.1597146

Raudszus, H., Segers, E., & Verhoeven, L. (2021). Patterns and predictors of reading comprehension growth in first and Second language readers. Journal of Research in Reading, 44(2), 400–417. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9817.1234