Remote learning is even harder when English isn’t students’ first language. Schools told us their priorities for supporting them

Description

The COVID-19 pandemic has left large numbers of students, teachers and families grappling with the challenges of remote learning. Remote learning can be particularly challenging for students who are learning English as an additional language or dialect (EAL/D students).
We wanted to find out about schools’ experiences of teaching and supporting these students during the 2020 and 2021 lockdowns in Victoria. We interviewed ten classroom teachers and EAL/D curriculum leaders across primary and secondary levels in urban, regional and rural schools. We identified three key areas of concern for these students:
- well-being – issues such as language barriers compounded their feelings of isolation and disconnection
- access to resources such as digital devices, the internet and learning materials
- loss of in-school structural supports.