how to help esol children and families

[fluffy bunny]

Hello everybody,

Im newish to the site and im half way through my nvq 3, i have to say its brilliant!! Im after abit of help please, im doing my placement in a creche and we have esol (english is a second or other language) children and parents attending and i would appreciate any idea's on communication with both parents and children. Also how i can tell the parents what their child has been doing in creche ie if they have been painting or playing in the home corner.

Any help will be gratefully received thanks

[Ruthierhyme]

Hi and welcome

Interesting placement do you have any contacts that could help with translating some keywords into the home languages of your children - thirsty, toilet, wash hands, painting, sand, soft play?

If possible make these into tags and tie together - let the children know they can take the tags at any time and select ones that help them to communicate with you.

They could also be made into signs and hung / attached to the area of play or placed on a room plan poster/display which in turn can be used to show parents which activities the children have enjoyed during their session.

Photos are an idea for passing on information but you may find yourself looking much deeper into policies, procedures, confidentiality issues, safeguarding, risk assessment & permissions.

Stickers with play images / text or both would be excellent for Children and Parents - stick to paper if clothing would cause a problem or maybe on a copy of your newsletter/opening times.

Use play phrases, translated or not to explain what the Children had done, felt and would like to do .. 'I played with sand and built a sandcastle' 'I played in the home corner' I climbed the steps and slid down the slide' 'I missed you to start with but had lots of fun playing.. 'I want to ride the pushalong car next time' ..

For background or general information: EAL Checklist from Portsmouth.sch.uk

This may not be so relevant but is a reassuring read - Teaching English as an Additional Language: The challenges for classroom teachers


Hth a little, please let us know if you find anything that works well for you xx

[fluffy bunny]

Hi Ruthierhyme,

Thank you so much for your help, i should be able to come up with some sort of ways to communicate from your suggestions. In our creche we have 4 esol children aged from 1-3 years as well as 6 english children aged between 5months and 4years.

Two of the esol children are Polish and the other 2 are turkish. My placement supervisor and I have picked up a couple of turkish words (mum and toilet) but we need to see if we can have a session with the esol tutor and maybe she can give us some basic words or little sentences.

Once again thank you for your help and I'll let you know how I get on. Hopefully I might be able to help others with a similar situation.

kind regards
fluffy bunny x

[Ruthierhyme]

You're welcome, look forward to hearing xx