Subject teachers send 10–12 key words two weeks ahead. The EAL team builds a reference sheet with context, definitions, visuals, collocations and ‘questions your teacher might ask’, and learners get a head start before the topic.
Cycle
- Subject teacher → 10–12 key items, ~2 weeks before the topic.
- EAL team → keyword sheet: words in context, definitions, visuals, collocations, matching, “questions your teacher might ask (using this vocab)”.
- A week ahead → shared via Google Classroom; learners can translate into their home language.
- Wordwall check tasks with due dates; the data shows which items are hard.
- Review after the topic, before assessment. Repeat.
Limits
Subject-teacher buy-in; the impact is “more a feeling than it is tangible”. Command words and Tier 2 language (Zwiers: “mortar around the bricks”) may matter more than subject nouns.
Apply in my context (Claude)
- Directly usable if Rahimov runs any CLIL or subject-in-English classes. For Prepare 2e, the same cycle works with the next unit’s reading text: preview its 10 key chunks the week before.
Connections
Boers’ six evidence-backed practices for vocabulary and grammar · BICS and CALP - useful distinction, too rigid as a sequence