Assignment Task
Brief title of investigation
To explore teacher’s perceptions about how best to support children with English as an additional language (EAL) within reading.
Purpose of the study
The UK is a very diverse country, and this is shown within schools. Although there are schools in the UK that contain predominately white British pupils, other schools in different areas have a variety of children that speak English as a second language (Hymer, 2017). This is important as all children that arrive to the UK with very limited English, are entitled to two years of additional English language support (Murtagh and Francis, 2012). Although this is beneficial for the students, all children develop differently, and it is important to personalise a child’s learning to meet their needs so that they can grow and achieve (Department for Education, 2007). The purpose of the study is to understand the barriers when supporting children with EAL within reading as well as the strategies that can be used to overcome this. Reading is a key aspect within English in the national curriculum, it allows children to acquire knowledge and build upon their current subject knowledge. It also ensures growth within their imagination which can help open a range of ideas and questions. This can help develop other skills within English like writing skills and spoken language (Department for Education, 2014b).
Proposed participants in research
In the research for this study, the participants involved will include a minimum of 3 primary teachers in one West Midlands primary school. Convenience sampling will be used to select the school and the 3 teachers across both key stages will be asked to complete a semi-structured interview. The sample is ‘convenient’ as the participants involved in the research will be at the researcher’s placement school. (Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2018). If there are no participants available within my placement school, if I am unable to find suitable participants within my placement school, I will use my connections from other schools. This will be followed by purposive sampling to select 3 of the teachers to be interviewed based on the high level of experience they have teaching children with EAL. Teachers will be purposefully selected according to the age group that they teach. The intention of the researcher is to interview 1 teacher from each key stage. Brief description of procedure
Brief description of procedure
A minimum of 3 primary school teachers will be invited to participate in a semi-structured interview to discuss their experiences when teaching EAL students as well as explore the struggles they faced and teaching strategies that they used to support them. It will consist of a minimum of 3 set questions that will be asked to each participant and if necessary I will ask any other additional unscripted questions linking to the planning and the level of difficulty when teaching children with EAL. The interview will be designed to understand the barriers that teachers faced when teaching children with EAL, exploring the teaching strategies that they used to overcome the barriers and investigating any changes that should be made to support children with EAL when teaching reading. The teachers selected will be requested to take part in an individual, semi-structured interview. This will allow appropriate and pertinent digression from focus areas within the prepared interview outline, based on their responses (Thomas, 2017, pp.206-207).
There are three possible scenarios for conducting the interviews:
1. If circumstances allow, the interviews will take place in the school at a mutually convenient time for both teachers. Interviews will be recorded using appropriate equipment with the permission of the participant. The recording device and the files will be password/PIN protected.
2. Depending on the circumstances, the interviews may need to be conducted over the phone. If this is the case, the researcher will ensure that they are in an appropriate location where the conversation cannot be overheard, and they can give the interview their full concentration. Again, the interviews will be recorded, with prior permission of the participants and the recording device and files password/PIN protected.
3. The interviews may need to be conducted on Microsoft Teams. This will happen with the prior permission of the head teacher and at a mutually convenient time. These interviews will be recorded with the permission of the participants. Recording will be audio only and participants will be reassured that no video recording will take place therefore they do not need to switch on their cameras. They will be informed when the recording has started and finished. The researcher will switch on their camera so that the participants can see who they are talking to, and the researcher will ensure that their background is appropriate for carrying out the interviews.
Question
- How will participants informed conset be obtained for the study?
- Does the study involve any specific issues, hazard, or procedures which may cause distress or discomfort?
- Does this study involve potentially security sensitive material (such as material relating to terrorism and extremism).
- What procedures will be used to address these issues?
