Intellectual and linguistic skills

Low-income Black children

• Low-income Black children lack intellectual stimulation and enriching experiences

  • Leaves them poorly equipped for school due to lack of reasoning and problem-solving skills

Bereiter & Engelmann

Black American English

• Low-income Black American English inadequate for academic success

  • Ungrammatical

  • Disjointed

  • Incapable of expressing abstract ideas

EAL students

• EAL students held back due to inadequate acquisition of English

COUNTERPOINT:

• 2010- EAL students only 3.2 percentage points behind EFL students in the % of 5 A*-C grades at GCSE

• Students that learn English at school have a huge advantage as they learn the elaborated code that is used at school which means they are used to it

Official Statistics (2013)

EAL EBacc results

• 18% of primary and 13% of secondary school pupils EAL

• EAL pupils perform native-English speaking pupils in the EBacc once proficient in English

Swann Report (1985)

EAL overcoming

• Language barriers initially lower attainment but quickly overcome especially among younger pupils

Gillborn & Mirza (2000)

Indian students and EAL

• Indian students do very well despite EAL