Back in May 2022, the third meeting of the International School SIG was attended by over 20 teachers, keen to learn more about co-planning. Our guest speaker was Tan K. Huynh, career teacher, consultant and author specialising in language acquisition and literacy development. 

Tan shared timesaving co-planning approaches that allow teachers to get to the heart of the intended learning, together. In his presentation, Tan shared his top two strategies in co-planning for EAL learners. To ensure high-yield co-planning, Tan’s first strategy involves distinguishing long-term, medium-term and short-term learning goals and agreeing them through a collaborative process. He refers to these learning goals as the ‘big rocks’, ‘the pebbles’, and ‘the sand’. The next important step after identifying the ‘big rocks’ is to deconstruct and sequence them into smaller, achievable day-to-day activities that support the main objectives. Tan ended the presentation by emphasizing the importance of maintaining focus on the ‘big rocks’ in order to get the most out of scarce collaborative co-planning time. You can find out more about Tan’s approach at www.tankhuynh.com.

As always, if you would like to find out more about our special interest group and future meetings, head to naldic.org.uk or follow @EAL_naldic our conveners Dr Lorna Caputo @lorna_caputo and Katharine Anderson @kiltedkate on Twitter.