ENGLISH AS AN ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE

At The Towers, we aim to develop pupils' ability to understand and respond to spoken English, to communicate in speech, to read, understand and respond in written English, to communicate in writing, to give pupils the opportunity to fulfil their potential in their GCSE and English Language external examinations and to progress to further education. Students learn to demonstrate the ability to communicate in English with confidence, using accurate spoken and written constructions. They should be able to show an increasing ability to communicate ideas and opinions, an increasing fluency and an increasing accuracy in pronunciation and intonation.
Practices and procedures vary dependent upon the perceived needs of the individual child. Any Junior child with an EAL need will be assessed by the SENCo and be offered in class TA support whilst any Senior girl will be assessed by the English department and be taught according to her needs and abilitities. Where necessary, an EAL specialist will be contacted to provide extra-curricular support at an additional cost.
Students are expected to take their dictionaries to all their timetabled lessons so that they can understand key words in their lessons. They are required to speak English at all times during the school day. All students are entitled to the use of bilingual dictionaries in tests, and most GCSE examinations. Ongoing teacher assessment enables teachers to match the tasks set to the abilities and needs of pupils as they progress.