I am no expert in teaching Shakespeare, so forgive me if the knowledge of his plays is not up to scratch! I truly believe learners that use EAL and whose language proficiency ranges from New to English (Beginner) onwards can access Shakespeare with appropriate approaches and strategies.
I will always remember something the esteemed Prof. Pauline Gibbons (check out her books they are all so good!) said when attending my school in Thailand. The school was lucky enough to have Prof. Gibbons visit three years in a row! In one session, the EAL department had a chance to post questions to her. One question was based on the teaching of Shakespeare. It is more than likely that learners who use EAL (who learning schools in England / through the English / British curriculum) will study at least one of his works at some point. Prof. Gibbons said that Shakespeare is about ‘big ideas’ and once your learners can grasp these, then of course it is a case of drilling down into the language.
I will aim to give some approaches and strategies that I believe can help all learners who use EAL access Shakespeare and big ideas. For the context of this post, I will focus on Macbeth as I co-taught / co-planned a unit with a fantastic English teacher. From an EAL specialists’ point of view, collaboration / co-planning between mainstream and EAL / Bilingual teachers etc. is hugely beneficial for all learners as well as those who use EAL.
Building background / making explicit
- Shakespeare’s plays were written centuries ago. Therefore, it is important to have at least a basic understanding of what was happening at the time and link to any prior learning. Below is an activity we created to build background to the big ideas happening during Shakespeare’s time and Thai culture. Royalty, religion and people are important themes in Shakespeare’s Macbeth and this is also true of Thai culture. At this stage, we asked learners to consider Thai culture, the explicit links to Shakespeare’s time comes below.
2. We explored other themes (big ideas) by breaking words down as can be seen below and linked these to Macbeth. From here we asked learners to think, pair, share, making predictions based on the Divine Right of Kings using sentence starters to model the language of predicting.
3. After breaking down the divine right of kings further, we linked what we had discussed about from 1. above to Shakespeare’s times (allegedly Macbeth was first performed in 1606).
4. With the visuals below, we helped learners understand the great chain of being which is another big idea from Macbeth.
5. Learners then wrote sentences using the sentence starters seen below. This was successful because of the way we had made explicit links to background knowledge and to the learners culture.
6. Below is another example of building background and links to big ideas. When discussing this, learners who are New to English could do this in their first language (L1) if they have a same buddy. Alternatively, sit with a pair and listen to their peers which can help in the development of language through hearing language they are looking to develop.
7. Developing learners vocabulary is always essential. The below image shows four words linked to the big idea of the supernatural. Learners who are literate in their language(s) could create dual language glossaries. Alternatively, you could provide learner friendly definitions that are just beyond (and therefore model) the learners’ proficiency in English.
Where possible make explicit links to your learners’ culture(s). In some ways I was lucky to work in an international school with a majority Thai culture. Therefore, making explicit links to learners’ cultures was easier than in my current school where there are a range of different cultures in the classroom. I am still able to use these strategies but instead of using a specific culture, I use ‘your culture.’ This often brings up fantastic opportunities to learn about my learners cultures which I truly value.
In summary, focusing on big ideas as suggested by Prof. Gibbons can be highly supportive of all learners and in particular those at the early stages of developing proficiency in English. There are a wide range of ways to do this and hopefully the ideas above give you some ideas.
EAL in the Daylight 