multilingualism helped all students. Both schools used‘mainstreaming approach’
placing students in mainstream classes irrespective of their language skills. Some
extra tuition was provided when students were withdrawn. Students’prior learning
was not known, and teachers were not well-informed about social backgrounds or
about parents’pre-migration social position. Arnot et al. concluded:‘All teachers
should receive training in the second language acquisition process in order to
discern the sometimes subtle differences between typical language development and
the presence of concomitant learning difficulties’(p. 112). The executive summary
recommends a nuanced and deeper engagement with what is in the students’best
interest, and that schools should develop school-wide language policy including
using home languages in the classroom.
This confirms Costley ( 2014 ) and Leung’s( 2016 ) acknowledgement of a policy
and curriculum vacuum for EAL. UK researchers have often documented the need
to do more than‘mainstreaming’. This is also related to our research schools. In US,
teachers had to work towards state and federal tests (McEachron et al. 2015 ).
Henrico County had clear EAL/ESL policies, syllabi and curricular priorities to
guide teachers. This was not the case for schools in Bristol. We were interested in
discovering what was happening in classrooms and how that information could help
make sense of EAL teaching in different locations. The impact of policy on practice
was implicit in the data.
46.6 Impact on Schools
Schools which are working without critical self-awareness or knowledge of
research-based evidence will struggle to recognize bilingualism and multilingualism
as strengths. They may be under-resourced or unable to see how bilingual or multi-
lingual children acquire English. Safford and Drury ( 2013 , p. 70) refer to teachers’
‘monolingual mind set’and ask why bilingualism is a‘problem’. They suggest that
policies and practices that place‘bilingual learners in a monolingual curriculum and
assessment structure’are not helpful. According to Driver and Ullmann ( 2011 )
schools cannot help students with EAL who also have Special Educational Needs.
Teachers’Knowledge of the students’background, cultural responsiveness and
acknowledgement of diversity is crucial for meeting students’expectations and needs.
Our interest in EAL led us to be mindful of these issues in UK and US schools.
46.7 Teaching EAL in the Global Classroom:
A Transnational Study in US and UK
Our commitment to intercultural education, social justice and work with pre-service
teachers led us to design a small project‘Teaching EAL in the Global Classroom’
(McEachron et al. 2015). The research involvedfive UK teachers in two UK
686 G. Bhatti and G. McEachron