Second language students in mainstream classrooms - Coreen Sears

This handbook is designed as an aid for teachers of second language children in the mainstream classrooms of international schools. English-medium international schools draw their varied student populations from a wide range of mobile and internationally-minded families, who have high expectations for their children. It is the teacher's role to create a classroom environment where second language children flourish socially and academically at the same time as they become competent users of English. This handbook offers a wealth of practical suggestions for enabling teachers to create such a classroom. The contents cover all aspects of second language children's lives including social, emotional and pedagogic factors. There are chapters covering such areas as the nature of international schooling, issues of cultural adjustment and language learning. Further chapters give teachers practical, down-to-earth advice, subject by subject, relating to the language and academic needs of second language children in the curriculum areas of the programme. There are extensive suggestions relating to teacher resources and further reading. Separate textboxes throughout the handbook, containing extracts, quotations and cameos from real life, are designed to shed light on the lives of second language children and their teachers in international schools.