Guest Posted September 11, 2010 Posted September 11, 2010 Hello, I am quite new to the forum and would like to introduce myself. I am an NQT Reception teacher and have a little boy in my class who is EAL and keeps calling out during story time and wanted to ask for advice on how to handle this correctly from the beginning if anyone can help please! He is an internal child from the Nursery and during his time he did receive a lot of 1:1 tuition and was allowed to just wander around and do whatever he wanted during carpet time. However, I want to make sure he understands from the beginning that he is the same as everyone else and needs to behave the same. His English is really improving and his mum has said that he even speaks English now during the afternoons rather than his mother tongue so she is very happy with this, however, she asked if she could suggest something to me and this was for him to be the child who is chosen for everything when on the carpet. I said no as of course I will involve him as I am already doing but explained that he needs to learn from the beginning the right way to behave and that it maybe hard at the beginning but that this should make life easier later on! He definitely is improving but the problem is he keeps laughing and making very silly noises during carpet time and does not really respond when I ask him to stop (well he does for a while but then starts again) and you can see the other children are a little frustrated already as the story keeps being interrupted and they can't hear. I did use the happy and sad face and when I wrote his name under the sad face he seemed to respond quite well, but I do not want him to feel this means nothing. I will be putting the traffic lights into place once all children join the class, but as it is currently mornings only and a staggered approach, I thought it was best to wait to introduce this as a whole group and the marbles as a reward. I am thinking that I should put a behaviour strategy in place specifically unique for him! Unfortunately he is rather spoilt and mum has given in so many times, he is also a little immature. He loves Thomas the Tank and I wondered if I was to create a reward chart with Thomas on if this may help, he is a lovely little boy and I just want to do the right thing for him and to do this at the very start so any suggestions would be very welcome. I am sure as with everything in life I just need to give it time, but am I correct in my thinking on this one?
Guest Posted September 11, 2010 Posted September 11, 2010 I have alot of EAL children and I don't make any difference between them and the other children when it comes to behaviour. If his english is as good as you say then he should understand a story and do as he's told and sit and listen. EAL is not an excuse to allow him to do what he wants. I'm surprised that the Nursery allowed hime to do want he wanted. I have children that arrive one week and start with us the next and have no English we do shortened versions and have books with lots of pictures but they are still asked to learn to listen. Good luck but stick to normal procedure and don't become swallowed by the EAL bit. Steph
AnonyMouse_3307 Posted September 12, 2010 Posted September 12, 2010 However his receptive language skills may not be truly reflected in his capacity to communicate his immediate needs. Sitting and listening to English may still be beyond his skill set in English. Have you considered doing activities around the stories before you read them on the carpet so that he has some cognitive understanding of the story?? Of course children need to learn to behave appropriately but his immediate needs may dictate that some routines are not going to be conducive to him doing so if he doesn't have the underlying comprehensive skills to engage fully. His responses may be because he just can't follow what's going on. Cx Strategies_for_monolingual_practitioners.doc
Guest Posted September 12, 2010 Posted September 12, 2010 Maybe give him something small to hold on the carpet for a little while until he learns not to call out - a car or something he can engage himself with but with the understanding that he cannot call out or get up and wander off? I have a severely autistic boy in my class who we are just teaching that carpet time means sitting down with the others (after 2 terms of letting him wander as we felt it was not appropriate to encourage him to sit down), but since I know he has limited understanding of the story (he has a number of other problems too), and also that sitting down for more than 2 minutes is new to him I'm using small toys as a 'halfway house' between wandering round the Nursery and expecting him to conform with all the other children. I just explained it to the other children that he was just learning to sit down with them and he still needed a toy on the carpet. They've just accepted this and if he goes to get up they'll remind him to sit down too! Is working for me so far...
Guest Posted September 12, 2010 Posted September 12, 2010 Thank you all very much for your replies. I will definitely continue to ensure he understands that he needs to follow the rules and routines and think it is a great idea to explain to the other children so that they can also work together to show him the right thing to do, but of course in a sensitive way as you have described. I like the idea of a toy and will see if this will work, I did use this the other day when we went for our music lesson as he decided he did not want to follow and it worked! I will try activities around the story too and thank you also for the attachment I will certainly absorb. I guess as this is all new to me as I am an NQT it is just a matter of time to gain experience, I just want to make sure I am doing the right thing from the start and your comments have helped me to reflect further, thank you. x
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