English Proficiency In Education

Introduction

The purpose of utilisation of reflection could be envisaged as the process of development of proper measure of professionalism regarding working within any definitive process of education or within any other discipline. This could be comprehended as an effective tool in terms of the improvement of personal practice and capability as well as skill based operational abilities concerning the discipline under consideration. Through the utilisation of Gibbs model of Reflection, it was understood in an evident manner that the absence of English as a secondary language in the professional development of myself has been one of the most debilitating obstacle for me which had been left unattended. In this respect, I focused upon the application of the Model of Reflective Actions propounded by Schon so that the ability to reflect upon the various actions and situations in which I did find myself and which I often undertook as well, could be developed. Another purpose of such Reflective Action application, concerning the Reflection on Action theoretical construct propounded by Schon, had been associated with that of evaluation of my personal ability to engage within the procedure of learning on a consistent basis. In this respect, the emphasis was completely upon the concentration of deliberate attention on the practical as well as theoretical construct based value propositions which could be derived from the analysis of routine actions through examination of these in the manner of a cerebral reflection based approach. For me, the utilisation of the Reflective practice bordered on the conviction that learning could not be properly achieved through solitary experiences alone and, the utilisation of deliberate and consistent reflection on the gathered experience of a person. My singular intention in undertaking of the deliberate reflection on my gathered experiences could be understood in the manner of the necessity to develop effective and precise insight concerning the effect of absence of English as an additional and possibly a secondary language in my formative stage. The effects in this regard became apparent for me in the realisation of the fact that communicative English could prove to be one of the shortcomings on my part and this could also pose serious challenges for children who could be undergoing their early formative stage of learning. Thus, an action plan was necessary to be developed on my part for the purpose to improve the understanding and knowledge of utilisation of English as a reinforcing and second language and to enhance the competency scenario regarding evaluation of the prospects of children who could be undertaking English as their second language learning format.

Through the realisation formulated by the above mentioned reflective process, it has become the intention of mine to perform a proper literature review on the significance and the effect of learning English as a second language for children undergoing their formative age based study and learning curricula. It is therefore, my study objective to utilise the Theory of Four Lenses propounded by Brookfield. This could effectively enable me to reflect on the practices of my own, could as well investigate the changes which could be brought about within the learning experiences of children through the utilisation of English as their secondary language, could provide the realisation of the challenges and barriers which could complicate the efforts of the children to undertake proper learning through the second language of English and finally, this process could as well transform my understanding regarding the probable responses which could be generated by my fellow learning practitioners regarding their efforts to teach the children. In this regard, the application of various theoretical constructs and different perspectives could be considered to be necessary since this could be effective in terms of providing the realisation that the interpretation of the various aspects of teaching difficulties could be possible in a more nuanced manner since the inevitability of the external, socio-economical as well as demographic and cultural influences could shape the learning experiences of students in their formative years considerably.

Research Question

According to Beech, McGill and Brockbank (2017), the significance of the adult learners such as me, who could be consistently coming in to the phase of their Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) settings and could be striving to improve their practical communication skills as well as who could be identified to be not directly associated to a predominantly English speaking cultural background, is extensive. This could be further explained from the perspective that mine regarding not having the language of English as a dominant one in my familial lineages or at their residential spectrum. Thus, it could be considered, from the perspective of Park et al (2016), that an increasing number of educational practitioners have acknowledged working with adult learners such as me as well as their families who have other languages than that of English as their vernacular, with some considerable degree of success. In case of some specific practitioners, the students could be observed to be related to specific settings which could be identified to be comprised of bilingual groups where English is not included. In other cases, according to Campbell (2014), the students and adult learners could be closely associated with a collection of multicultural conglomerate where the aspect of diversity could be the predominant one. In this respect, it could be determined that the prospects of
evaluation of the process of working with the adult learners like me who could undertake the effort of learning English as their additional language as a definite element of their broader educational practice. Cook (2016), has thus outlined the fact that for the incremental extent of the settings of learning and cultural perspectives, provisioning of proper learning opportunities for the particular adult learners such as me, at the subsequent stages of learning could be assisted through instituting English as their second language since, for those families and adult learners belonging to them where English could be considered to be a new language, the new experience of proficiency acquisition in this specific mode of verbal and linguistic communication could be beneficial regarding providing the adult learners and students, such as me, with a positive experience of learning ability development(gse.rutgers.edu, 2018).

Strength

According to Cohen (2014), it is necessary for the educational and teaching fields related practitioners within every setting of these disciplines to ensure that the provisions which they could bring forth could match the requirements of the non-native speakers of English, such as me, who could be in necessity of particular learning processes through which their development could be realised. Thus, according to Lardiere (2017), it is always necessary to develop specifically tailored advices and guidance manuals which could provide effective guidelines regarding the development of the most beneficial practices on part of the learning practitioners and professionals who could be working with the non-English speaking adult learners, such as me, as well as their family members and local guardians as well. From the research perspectives of Wan (2017), it could be always deemed necessary to ensure that the guidelines and operational procedures could be synchronised with the themes and commitments as well as the principles espoused by the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) settings so that such processes could be utilised in conjunction with the methods put forward by the Principles into Practice (PIP) framework. In this context, McDonough and
McDonough (2014), have stated that, the entire framework could be formulated on four effective thematic constructs. These could be identified as the Effective Practices, Reflective Practices, Learning and Development and finally the Challenges and Dilemmas which could be presented to the adult learners in the due course of learning. Apart from these, according to Leung, Davison and Mohan (2014), the additional factors which could influence the process of ensuring better learning prospects for mine, regarding undertaking the study of English as their second language, could be understood in the manner of determination of the uniqueness of the students with the second language of English, the necessity to formulate positive relationship between the learner and the supporting professionals and finally, the establishment of enabling environments for effective reflective practices in terms of the learnt lessons and experiences.

Opportunities

As per the observations of Richards (2015), the principles of effective learning reflection and practice for the adult learners such as me, in terms of the learning of English as a second language, should include several conditions and considerations. It is thus, necessary for the effective learning practitioners to involve all of the students such as me, within the learning and reflective practice framework through the meeting of the various learning requirements of such children which could be case specific as well as of unique nature as well. Dörnyei (2014), has critically emphasised upon the necessity to properly evaluate the capability of understanding as well as knowledge of the students with secondary language of English, who could be undertaking the learning of English as an Additional Language (EAL) for the purpose of practical communicative capability improvement so that further learning and effective communication with the greater academic world could be facilitiated. Any shortcoming in this respect could lead to the emergence of vulnerability regarding the outcomes of the Foundation Stage Profile (FSP) based evaluations of learning of such students with first language other than English. If, as has been opined by August and Shanahan (2017), the vulnerabilities concerning the Foundation Stage Profile (FSP)could be realised, then, the objectives associated with the framework of Every Child Matters could be completely jeopardised and thus the bilingual students such as me, could experience difficulty in absorbing the learning benefits in comparison to those of their monolingual counterparts.

In this context, according to the observations of Gass (2017), the provision of multidimensional support is necessary to be continuously provided to the development of both of the first and second languages as well as providing specific impetus to the bilingual students such as me with the language of English as a secondary language to undertake greater efforts in learning the second language to access the opportunities of growth and better learning quality improvement in terms of the stipulations of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). This is oriented towards the comprehensive development of the entire repertoire of languages through which the students of bilingual capabilities such as me, could learn to improve the practical communication skills within the overall existing learning framework. Larsen-Freeman and Long (2014), suggests that it could be necessitated to formulate specific and case oriented approaches regarding the resolving of the issues which could be associated with cognitive challenges which are often found to be much higher than which could be successfully negotiated by any learning professional working with the students who could be opting to improve their learning skills through accepting the English as a secondary language. Thus, continuous provisioning of contextual as well as linguistic support could be utilised as an effective tool for the purpose of cognitive and academic development of the adult learners so that language acquisition could be utilised as an instrument to formulate the greater measure of inclusivity within the existing learning curriculum.

From the research perspective of Mackey and Gass (2015), the considerations could be envisaged to be indicative of the fact that the EYFS framework succinctly delineates the necessity to ensure that all of the students with English as a secondary language could be provided with the most equitable as well as inclusive provisions regarding the learning development process. It is, according to Ortega (2014),thus necessary for the Local Authorities (LAs) to consistently assist the learning professionals working with the students with English as a secondary language to meet their requirements of communication improvement through the process of planning, in a careful as well as thorough manner, for the purpose of delivering the support to the bilingual students interested in opting for learning cognition development through accepting English as a secondary language and who could be undergoing bilingual learning courses and to further monitor the impact of the deliverance of such training and effort towards such direction.

Weaknesses

According to Smith and Candlin (2014), this provision is completely incumbent upon the ability of the students and adult learners, such as mine and their families to access the qualitative benefits which could be derived from the efforts of the Local Authorities in this direction and the LAs are therefore, completely responsible for ensuring that place sufficiency as well as accessible information could be available for the adult learners to undertake proper learning activities. Such information, as per the observations of Saville-Troike and Barto (2016), is necessary to be shared with the intended adult learners. This could be understood to be of greater significance regarding the removal of the potential barriers which could have had a debilitating effect previously on some of the families of the adult learners and in such cases, the affected families are more prone to be excluded from the entire process of inclusive learning provisioning by LAs and by the learning professionals as well. Thus, Hoffmeister and Caldwell-Harris (2014),have opined that such potential barriers to learning and sharing of information at each and every level of the mechanism regarding the accessibility of particular services could be considered to be the primary priorities for the authorities involved in the propagation of such learning process involving the bilingual adult learners within the overall framework of communicative English practice and training.

In this respect, Paradis (2016), has outlined the fact that the responsibilities associated with Early Years Outcomes are deliberative of the necessity to shoulder the obligations, exclusively by the Secondary Language adult learners and communicators in English. The prime necessity on part of the such students as me could be thus considered as the requirement to address all of the existing gaps which could be outlined to be the challenges on part of the diversified groups of the non-first language English based students to achieve their learning objectives while the conclusive phase of the Foundation Stage could be reached. These measures are generally evaluated through the instrument of Foundation Stage Profile outcomes. According to Rutherford (2014), for most of the Secondary English language adult learners, for whom, the English language could be an additional one, could thus be identified to be some of the lowest achievers when the Foundation Stage could be concluded. There lies the critical gap of effort which could only be fulfilled by the specific actions undertaken by the LAs in this direction.

Threats

In terms of learning and development based key aspects, Paradis and Jia (2017), have highlighted the observation that the methods and rates of development of cognition and learning for different groups of practitioners of English as a secondary language for the purpose of having positive impact on their language based communication skills, are significantly diverse as well. Thus, the emphasis has to be always on simultaneous execution of all of the learning areas through an interconnected mechanism. Here the questions of commitments become significant which are considerably multifarious as well as far as the numerical volume and specific nature of such commitments on part of the learning service professionals and the Local Authorities are concerned. In this context, the first commitment could be understood in the form of fostering of the interest of the bilingual adult learners to develop effective communication skills through learning the phonetics based approaches in the mode of the verbal dialects of English as a means of consistent and comprehensive instrument of communication. According to Luk and Lin (2015), fostering of creativity and critical thinking in the form of enabling the additional language adult learners to play with various forms of ideas and with different resources which could expose the adult learners to a variety of situations and the accompanying effects, could be considered to be one of the most vital commitments regarding the enhancement of the ability in the adult learners of critical thinking through becoming more inquisitive at all the times.

Yoon and Polio (2017) have opined that one of the most effective formats of enabling the secondary English language adult learners to learn is to subject them to different forms of mental challenges. Engaging the non-native speaking English language adult learners through various modes of events and ideas, objects and responsibilities could ultimately lead to the development of the child adult learners through a prolonged and sustained duration. This could be outlined as active learning. In this context, it could be determined that any effective practice within the overall framework of learning, is necessary to involve an equally effective EYFS setting as well under which an ideal environment could be fostered for the secondary language adult learners to learn about English as their additional language. The training and expertise of the practitioners and professionals of such disciplines could of vital importance regarding the learning of EAL. Instilling of positive attitude, as has been opined by Urquhart and Weir (2014), within the learning environment could be considered to be necessary regarding the responsibility of the practitioners concerning the assessment, observation and plan formulation of the methods of active learning based training impartation on the English language adult learners concerning the entire spectrum of learning of EAL.

Incidentally, the acquisition of the additional language of English could be performed by the adult learners through close interaction with their peers and guardians as well as other students. Liu et al(2015),have highlighted the necessity to perform close observation of all of these interactions so that the evolving situation of the learning of such language could be utilised to plan better methods to make the students such as mine learn EAL in a greater structured manner. One aspect of such methodical learning process could be as well envisaged in the manner of development of different learning models through which the EAL adult learners could be introduced to the structures and formats of new languages as well as hitherto unknown vocabulary.

At the conclusive stage, it could be observed that the preceding entire literature review has been able to address quite an extensive range of issues which could attest to the fact that learning English as an additional or second language could have a significant and far ranging effect concerning the development as well as learning ability enhancement of EAL practitioners who could be associated with diversified and diverging cultural lineages from those of their monolingual fellow students.

Conclusion

At the conclusive stage, it could be observed that the preceding entire literature review has been able to address quite an extensive range of issues which could attest to the fact that learning English as an additional or second language could have a significant and far ranging effect concerning the development as well as learning ability enhancement of EAL practitioners who could be associated with diversified and diverging cultural lineages from those of their monolingual fellow students.

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Reference List

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