EAL child starting Monday...help!

[NeTeConfundantIllegitimi]

I have a Dutch girl starting in my Yr6 class on Monday. She's been in England less than a week. She's apparently quite bright, but I don't know how much English she can speak/read/write. I'm looking forward to her coming, but have not taught an EAL child before.

Has anyone got any ideas of what my TA could do with her during our English lessons this week (while the rest of my class are finishing off a text we've been reading for a while)?

Maybe don't worry too much that the rest of you are doing English - if you can spare the TA, then any communication at all will help you build up a picture of her existing English abilities. So maybe get the TA to work with her as she does some maths tasks - can she name the numbers, operations, explain what she is doing? In the library - which books has she read (in Dutch or English), which authors does she recognise, what stage reading books can she read and how fluently? Can she describe pictures? Can she use different tenses? In science books, what has she worked on before - if she has little English, maybe some KS1 big books might be a good staring point for teaching topic related vocab?. Longer term, TA could pre-teach vocab. Chances are she will have some English, just from exposure to films, music etc. also, Dutch is not that different from Enlish phonetically, so progress should be quite quick. Good luck - will be v exciting for the rest of your class

Thanks! Those are really helpful. My class are very excited. They've made her a card (after asking me to find out what 'welcome to our class' is in Dutch).

I'd be suprised if she doesn't know some English. A lot of Dutch TV is British / American with Dutch subtitles, but when it is simple Englise, such as Sesame St then it is not subtitled.

I like the sound of your class, very thoughtful.

this is a great translation site, where you can hear the translation as well as read it.

Thanks sayithowitis! Google Translate is blocked on the school filters so hopefully I'll be able to use that one if needed.

It's very likely that she will speak some English.

Get the TA to show her round the school so that she's familiar with the place, have a keycard with images on of basics like the toilet, playground, cartoon faces showing sad/happy/confused/sick so she can signal how she's feeling, buddy her up with a couple of inclusive types that will welcome her. Find out about her before you start worrying about her language level.
You won't be able to plan much until you know a bit more about her, any chance of you emailing the parents tomorrow or seeing them first thing on Monday?
Handwriting, phonics activities, drama, word ordering in sentence structure, language games...there are a lot of English activities she could do that would give you some idea of her levels.

I've asked 3 of my lovely girls to look after her on Monday, and I've printed a list of important adults to be familiar with, like yr6 team and headteacher (unfortunately don't have photos), and a simple timetable.

Got a great opportunity on Monday for her to do some art (designing a Christmas card which then gets professionally made) with TA and a few other children. Conversation will help us to assess a little bit. I think a lot of it is just 'go with the flow' isn't it? See how she does. As you said, Woffling, it's hard to plan much now.