English as an additional language (EAL) for Early Years

'A pupil's first language is defined as any language other than English that a child was exposed to during early development and continues to be exposed to in the home or community.' DfE 2016

An increasing number of children in early year's settings and schools are learning English as an Additional Language (EAL).

They are an extremely diverse group:

• Some children will be bilingual from birth, because their parents use two languages
• Some children will speak some English at times, but are not fluent
• Some children will speak conversational English, but are not able to express more complex thoughts
• Some children will be at a much earlier stage of learning English

The National Picture

The rich diversity of English culture society and language, which has evolved over centuries, is reflected in its schools. Over 25% of pupils are from an ethnic minority background and almost one in six pupils speak English as an additional language.

Learners arriving from overseas come from many different countries and even those children from the same country may have diverse ethnic, religious, political or social class backgrounds.

The number of children who speak a language other than English at home has risen by 20% in 5 years. The rise in the East of England is 40%.

Diverse Norfolk

Did you know?
Portuguese is the most widely spoken second language in the Norfolk.

For hundreds of years, refugees have travelled to Norfolk bringing new skills, language and customs. Since then, refugees have continued to make an important contribution to the culture and economy of the county.

Did you know? - The canary
It is widely known that 'The Canaries' is the nickname of Norwich City Football Club, but did you know it is thanks to refugees that Norwich is associated with the bird?

In the 16th century a large number of Dutch refugees settled in Norwich. This group, who became known as 'the strangers', brought their pet canaries with them. By the early 18th century, canary breeding had caught on in Norwich and the City had developed its own varieties.

Norwich City Football Club adopted the Canary as its badge in 1922 but the team was commonly known as 'The Canaries' from soon after its formation in 1902.

Who are EAL families in Norfolk today?

Norfolk is a linguistically rich county. Children from a minority ethnic background may be monolingual (speak one language), bilingual (speak two languages) or multilingual (speak more than two languages).

EAL children joining settings in Norfolk range from those who have been born in the UK to UK born parents, to those whose families move to the UK for economic reasons or to study. Also as Norwich is a dispersal centre for asylum seekers there is also a growing number of Asylum seeking families and a growing refugee community.

Eleven per cent of Norfolk school pupils are from minority ethnic backgrounds and largely comprise the following family groups:

Migrant worker families:
Arrive mainly from Eastern Europe and Portugal. Parents are often non English speaking or have low levels of spoken English.

Asylum Seeker and refugee families:
Arrive mainly from Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan and more recently, Syria. Families may be illiterate or literate and highly skilled. Norwich is a dispersal site for asylum seeker and refugee families. All will have experienced varying levels of trauma and insecurity due to prior experiences.

Short-term families:
They often study or work at the University or work for a large company. Comprise a wide range of nationalities and varying levels of English. Families are often highly academic. Norwich has a wide spread of nationalities and languages spoken. Other parts of the county tend to have clusters of one or two nationalities.

These are a few of the languages spoken in Norfolk, other than English:

• Portuguese
• Polish
• Lithuanian
• Russian
• Chinese
• Latvian
• Arabic
• Malayalam
• Bengali