The Stages of English Acquisition: What Teachers Need to Know

The single most common mistake teachers make with EAL pupils is treating them as a single group. 'My EAL pupils' may include: a child who arrived three weeks ago speaking no English; a child who was born here, speaks English fluently, and maintains family language at home; and everything in between. Appropriate provision is radically different for each.

The NASSEA (Northern Association of Support Services for Equality and Achievement) and Bell Foundation stages provide a useful framework:

**Stage A: New to English.** The pupil has no or minimal English. Understands little of what is said. Cannot communicate in English. May be in the silent period. Teaching response: visual support for everything; bilingual peer where possible; gesture and demonstration; home language allowed and encouraged; gentle inclusion without forced participation.

**Stage B: Early acquisition.** Beginning to communicate in English with single words or simple phrases. Understands familiar, contextualised language. Teaching response: sentence stems and frames; reduced written demand; paired work with patient English-speaking peers; vocabulary pre-teaching;

**Stage C: Developing competence.** Communicating in sentences, though with errors. Can access cognitively undemanding, contextualised tasks. Frustration common — has ideas that outrun language ability. Teaching response: maintain high cognitive challenge; reduce language demand; writing frames; oral rehearsal before writing; explicit grammar teaching through use.

**Stage D: Competent.** Can communicate effectively in most situations. Academic language still developing. May struggle with abstract, decontextualised tasks. Often invisible — mistaken for monolingual English speaker and under-supported. Teaching response: academic vocabulary development; support with subject-specific language; maintain challenge.

**Stage E: Fluent.** Appears to be at the level of a monolingual English peer. May still be developing in literacy, particularly creative and academic writing. Teaching response: continue developing academic register; celebrate bilingualism.

The BICS/CALP distinction

Jim Cummins's framework remains useful: BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills) — the conversational language used for everyday interaction — develops in 1-3 years. CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) — the language of academic thinking, abstraction, and subject-specific discourse — takes 5-7 years to develop to native speaker level.

A child who converses confidently in English may still be 5 years from academic language parity. This is why many EAL pupils who appear 'fine' at Stage D still need support with academic writing and abstract reasoning tasks.