What is EAL Teaching?

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The full form of EAL teaching is English as an Additional Language. This is a course often taken up by students who want to learn English as a second or third language. It can be guessed that the mother tongue of these students is not English, yet they have a curiosity to learn and understand this extremely popular and widely spoken language.

EAL teachers need to be very patient with the students because students attempting to understand the language are quite alien to it and therefore it is difficult for them to comprehend the language easily. It is crucial for the teacher to understand that different students will grasp the language in different ways. A person whose mother tongue is Japanese will have a little more difficulty in learning English than a person whose mother tongue is Italian, French, Latin or German because the latter languages are closely related to English as compared to Japanese.

It can be noticed that EAL students do make a lot of grammatical errors in English because the grammar which they use in their native language predominates their speech, leading to the mistakes. A common problem seen in English-speaking countries is that students and workers who emigrate from other countries seldom have complete control over the English language. In fact many of them cannot speak English at all, which is the main reason behind class barriers and communication problems at work.

EAL is just the right solution for these students and workers who want to enhance their limited knowledge of English so that they can cope with the language acting as a communication barrier. Buddy system mentoring is one of the best methods employed in EAL teaching. Class assessments, projects, etc. help students learn more about the language. Most importantly, the teacher teaching the language should be approachable and must motivate the student to learn the language rather than being a tough taskmaster.

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