I’m really excited to be back at Yeronga this year as the EAL/D Coach. I started my career at YSHS as a pre-service teacher in 2006 and love the positive, supportive community here. We have such an incredibly diverse population at our school, with speakers of over 60 different languages. A day at Yeronga SHS is like travelling the world.

My job is to support these English language learners (and their teachers) as they learn English, while learning about the English language, while learning all of their subject topics through English, which is no mean feat. Some of our students speak 3, 4 or 5 different languages. Imagine how fast your brain must work to manage all that in Senior Geography!

So far, I’ve been working with staff to help them understand their learners’ language needs, and will have the opportunity to drop in to classes later this week. Next we’ll be focusing on explicit teaching of vocabulary and grammar for learning and assessment. I’m sure we’ll have a great year focusing on language for learning!