Useful websites/ publications for teaching pupils with English as an additional language

(Primary schools)

General guidance/ information

  • EAL area on Wokingham Schools Hub website:

This area includes a Toolkit for supporting new arrivals; Polish and Arabic dual language resources; a list of websites with teaching materials in other languages; guidance documents; training and network meeting materials

  • – National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum – an excellent source of guidance on teaching EAL pupils.
  • Ofsted good practice case studies:

Information about pupils’ countries, cultures, languages

  • provide background information about learners’ home countries including maps and photographs.

provides information on Asian and Pacific countries.

  • - celebrating languages: videos and audio files, display materials and ideas for activities in about 60 languages.

Also – see the Language of the Month websites list where there are websites for many

different languages.

  • Information about the differences between English and other languages:

See the New Arrivals Toolkit page on the Wokingham Schools Hub for information about several languages, and also see

  • Information about cultures and languages:

A booklet produced by Milton Keynes LA is available on the Inclusion and Celebration page on the Wokingham Schools Hub.

  • Translations of 100 common words is available at:

(Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Farsi, French, German, Italian, Kurdish, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Urdu)

  • First words, phrases and numbers in many languages are available at:

(Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, Catalan, Dari, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Gujurati, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Lingala, Lithuanian, Mandarin, Norwegian, Polish , Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Sinhala, Slovak, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Tagalog, Tamil, Thai, Turkish, Twi, Urdu)

Teaching resources - including some in first languages

Portsmouth Ethnic Minority Achievement Service - many useful resources including language mats, graphic organisers and communication fans.

- Games and teaching materials for new arrivals.

- excellent site with a range of collaborative activities in different curriculum areas.

- Materials include vocabulary cards, word mats, and a word book for children to record new words.

– searchable database of resources.

– creates wordsearches and crosswords

  • Maths word book (KS2- 4)

In Arabic and Polish –on the Arabic and Polish pages on the Wokingham Schools Hub

In Hungarian, Portuguese, Thai, English -

Available to purchase from Hounslow Language Service in Albanian, Bengali, Bulgarian, Dari, French, Lithuanian, Panjabi, Somali and Spanish - all with English.

BBC website containing revision activities for key areas and skills. Often recommended to EAL learners to catch up on core content although not designed as such.

  • Incredible English – stories with audio, picture dictionaries with audio, language games, songs - at different levels.

- An excellent site with dual language traditional tales and short stories from around the world. The stories can be read and listened to online, or downloaded.

Stories are available in the following languages: Akan, Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, Danish, Filipino, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Mandarin, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Somali, Spanish, Tamil, Turkish, Urdu, Welsh, Yoruba and Zulu.

  • - online dual language and monolingual books.
  • - stories with cartoons which can be listened to and read at the same time. Many stories are interactive.
  • Oxford Owls e-books - a huge library of free eBooks with audio, some with activities.
  • Barrier games:
  • A website with activities for children to support the learning of English:

Games; animated stories and songs; reading and writing activities; spelling, pronunciation and phonics activities

‘Phrases for school’ booklets

  • - ‘Phrases for school’ booklet in Czech, German, Hungarian, Japanese, Polish, Thai, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak and Spanish.

- ‘Phrases for school’ booklet in Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, Punjabi, Somali, Tamil

Resources for working with parents

  • Letters for parents in different languages

and

Also - - available for £8

  • - an on line tool to support meetings with newly arrived parents who don’t speak English. The tool has written translations of questions that you are likely to want to ask parents (and audio) in Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, French, German, Lithuanian, Nepali, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Somali, and Sylheti.
  • Information on the importance of the first language:

- Hounslow Language Service leaflet ‘The advantages of being bilingual’ – available in Arabic, Bengali, Farsi, Gujarati, Hindi, Panjabi, Polish, Somali, Spanish and Urdu. (£7.50)

- Free leaflet on the importance of home language - available in French, Portuguese, Romanian, Turkish, Chinese, Czech

- Free leaflet ‘Keep your language alive’ – available in Arabic, Bengali, French, Polish, Spanish, Turkish

  • Guidance for parents on supporting reading:

- ‘Parents and Children Sharing Books’ - explains strategies for parents who wish

to help their children develop reading skills and is available in 17 different

languages.

- ‘Reading and Early Years – parents and children reading together’ (FS and

KS1) – a pack of leaflets for parents in several languages explaining the value of

reading with their child.

Both available from Hounslow Language service. Link for Hounslow Language Service catalogue:

- ‘Reading with your child’ booklet – available to download free in many languages at:

Dictionaries and translation services

  • Google- use Google to search for ‘(name of language) dictionary’. Also click on ‘language tools’ on the Google home page to translate text, or a web page or a document.
  • - links to translation websites and on-line dual language dictionaries

National Strategies materials

- All available to download from the National Strategies EAL materials pages on the Wokingham Schools Hub.

  • Excellence and enjoyment: learning and teaching for bilingual children in the primary years – a comprehensive set of materials including theory and classroom strategies/ activities.
  • Teaching units to support guided sessions for writing in English as an additional language – for Years 2-6
  • Supporting children learning English as an Additional Language: Guidance for practitioners in the Early Years Foundation Stage
  • New Arrivals Excellence Programme Guidance

– comprehensive advice on supporting newly arrived pupils with EAL

Resources to buy

  • many dual language books, picture dictionaries, CDs, posters and ‘Talking Pen’ resources. Also a ‘Welcome booklet’ translation CD Rom and dual language booklets for pupils to complete - ‘My Life Story’ / ‘All about Me’.
  • dual language picture dictionaries and dual language story books.
  • - Hounslow Language Service– dual language and other resources available to purchase, including ‘Beginners activity sheets’ to support teachers to meet the needs of new arrivals in the classroom; ‘Access and Inclusion – Beginners in Primary schools’; ‘EAL at KS1 – framework for the early stages’.
  • Racing to English –an excellent CD of resources and activities for EAL beginners (£45 + £5 p and p)
  • ‘Progression in language structures’ – Tower Hamlets EMA team – DVD including document and film (email ) - £10
  • Clicker 6 software ( - Software for reading and writing which provides extensive visual support, sentence building activities and speech. Also has audio stories.

Clicker resources at

  • - writing frames for use across the curriculum - £5.50
  • - publisher of monolingual fiction books in many different languages
  • LDA – - sets of picture cards e.g. home, school, prepositions, opposites, actions, verb tenses, sequencing.
  • - TTS – EAL/ Literacy resources
  • Oxford Reading Tree Story CDs

Oxford Reading Tree with Clicker 5 or Clicker 6