Weak EAL class

[Mellyboo]

During headstart week I was introduced to the few students in my EAL class, 4 of them. Four. Straight off the plane from China.  The the loveliest set of students, but barely speak a word of english, translators close by their side at all times. When I arrived to my first class my teacher assumed it was a joke and told me to fetch the English co-ordinator... As the week progressed, I realised that any learning in this classroom is going to be difficult, very difficult. Why? Despite the  "English only" rule, they speak mandarin 99% of the time, so that leaves my teacher, but she's busy with the other students who need it more than me, so that leaves no one, except you guys

So here is my main question : if there are 4 students in my class and they average 60%( just taking a guess) and I manage to pull a 85-100 % average(doubtful, I have a feeling this teacher will mark my SACs more harshly than my classmates), which places me at rank 1 and I bomb out on the exam, what will happen? Do my highly scored SACs become obsolete?

Another question : should I request to be moved to a mainstream English class and attend that throughout the year, then sit the EAL exam at the end of the year? The books the EAL and english class study are completely different. I have already read most of my texts twice and have a fairly good idea of what is expected in EAL.

Thaanks everyone

[dankfrank420]

Your English seems good enough to do normal English anyway. I don't think it's worth the stress you'll go through with your FOB classmates.

[Mellyboo]

Well, I assumed that moving to an EAL class ( being 100% eligible) would increase my chances of a higher score.

[M_BONG]

Well, I assumed that moving to an EAL class ( being 100% eligible) would increase my chances of a higher score.

There are a few structural differences in Language Analysis for EAL - so you can't go into an English class with a teacher who can't teach EAL.

Plus EAL scales up, relatively weaker cohort (?) so definitely stay and don't switch to mainstream English. You need all the advantage you can get with English.

What I would do is
* Double check with English coordinator if the texts you study (and the Context) are different from mainstream English.
If not, try to switch into an English class where the teacher knows a little bit about the Section C difference. If they don't, you can hire an EAL tutor (it's not much of a difference, but enough of one) that is familiar with the course - if that's too troublesome or likely to cause financial trouble, just get them to rehash EAL language analysis during one part of the year and ditch them after that (ie. don't bother with TR and Context). Alternately, just stay with your current class.

I was in EAL from Year 7 to 8 until I moved schools. The so-called foreigners tend to not take up class time because they tend to be the quiet ones and given they perform poorly, they will be bottom ranked and won't affect you if you're highly ranked and they tend to be the ones creating an active learning environment - the same can't be said about mainstream English. You might think negatively of people who are "fobs" but they tend to try the hardest in learning the language. So don't worry about teacher not giving you attention. It's year 12 and teachers (generally) understand the pressure and give you priority (I went to school 8AM before each SAC for one-on-one tutoring with teacher) and it's those things that will get you through : ie. making time for important things - not getting caught up with predispositions

A little bit about the difference between English and EAL.

For Section A and B, they are exactly the same. Same prompts; same text lists. Section C = similar. Same article; you just need to be able to summarise an article and talk about three devices (identical to English except we can talk about as many as we want) used to persuade the audience.  Of course, you're being compared with two different sample sizes

Good luck! (Also, good to see you've read the texts twice Get keen!

[Mellyboo]

Thanks for that Zezima!

Couple things ;

-The texts are definitely NOT the same.
-I need to learn how to write note form(never did that in my life)
-" they tend to try the hardest" (I tried not to use the word fob, it's not a particularly nice word) you would be wrong in this case. The exchange students at my school are the laziest bunch I've ever met in my life, nice, but lazy. Chatting the whole way through class in mandarin, worse than my mainstream english class, because at least the chatter is in English o.O
-My EAL teacher is, in fact, a EAL examiner, but she is leaving the school. We will most likely be left with a mainstream English teacher. I'll see if they are willing to do the one on one tutoring you're talking about. Probably because you're from melbourne high though not going to get my hopes up.