Time to study time in EAL.
When do we eat breakfast?
When do we eat lunch?
When do we eat dinner?
When do we eat snacks?
Year 2 EAL found out by asking Mr Wolf, who, as we know, is always hungry. He eats breakfast in the morning; lunch at midday; dinner in the evening and snacks in between meals. Be careful now! He might eat you!
Food, glorious food!
Year 1 and 2 EAL groups went to a virtual supermarket to fill their shopping trolleys with different types of food for a healthy, and in some cases, a not so healthy, meal.(Full marks to those who remembered to get a bottle of wine for mum and dad.) In the process they discovered that there are countable nouns (like apples), uncountable nouns (like sugar), and also nouns that can be both countable and uncountable (like cake). Grammar; it’s a piece of cake isn’t it!
Taste Buds!
Year 3 EAL learnt some useful words when they stuck out their tongues. There are four basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Taste buds on the tip of the tongue are sensitive to both sweet and salty foods like cakes and pretzels respectively. The sides of the tongue are sensitive to sour foods like lemons while the back of the tongue senses the bitter taste of coffee or grapefruit. What about the middle of the tongue? You might ask. It is sensitive to sweet things. So, now you know where on your tongue to place that tasty morsel to get most pleasure.
What does ‘Be Ambitious’ mean to you?
This is a question Year 4 and 5 EAL discussed and wrote about recently. ‘When I grow up, I want to be a vet, a lawyer, a scientist, a football player,’ they variously decided. These were their ambitions (noun). We agreed that a person could be described as ‘ambitious’ (adjective) if he or she worked hard to achieve an ambition. This led us to talk about the THINK, DO, BE skills you need to work successfully at school.
In EAL our ambition is to become as fluent as possible in English. We are striving to achieve the DO skills of Speed, Accuracy and Automaticity. That is, to speak English quickly, correctly and without having to think hard about vocabulary and grammar.
By Keith Olive