Rosetta Stone Classroom: Ingram Road Offers Language-Learning Support To EAL Pupils

About Ingram Road

Ingram Road Primary School caters for pupils in the inner city Holbeck area of Leeds, and has 203 pupils on role, 56% of whom do not speak English as a first language. Pupils at the school speak a total of 21 different languages, ranging from Arabic to Zulu.

Ingram Road: At a Glance

• Ingram Road Primary School in Leeds has 203 pupils on role.
• 56% of pupils do not speak English as a first language, with a total of 21 different languages, ranging from Arabic to Zulu.
• Ingram Road required a language learning tool to integrate EAL pupils into the school community.

Challenge

With a group of such varied first languages, Ingram Road required a language learning tool that would help the English as an Additional Language (EAL) students integrate effectively into the school community.

Solution

Rosetta Stone was chosen because the language learning technology could teach all pupils using the same software, owing to the Dynamic Immersion methodology, which teaches without translation, and instead uses context by pairing words and phrases with images in real life situations.

Mark Corkery, MFL co-ordinator and Year 6 teacher at Ingram Road, commented: “With the no translation approach, we have found Rosetta Stone to be an ideal solution for such a diverse school with so many different native languages.”

The program is available online, both within the school and to students with internet access at home and has solicited positive reactions from pupils and staff alike. The unique voice recognition technology compares learners’ pronunciation to a native speaker, helping students work on their accent at their own pace.

Rosetta Stone Manager, the program’s management tool, allows the staff to check and monitor their progress. The EAL Coordinator uses the Manager tool to complete regular reports on each individual’s progress, so teachers can support them better in the classroom.

Results

The Rosetta Stone program has proved popular with students, teachers and support staff alike, yielding noticeable results and increased levels of confidence and engagement amongst the School’s EAL students in a short period of time. After just a few months of use, the school are looking to expand availability of the program to their Modern Foreign Language classes.

A Success Story

The story of Sylvek, an EAL student at Ingram Road who arrived in Leeds from his native Poland in Autumn of 2008, with his family, highlights just how successful the program has been at this primary school. Upon joining Mark’s class, Sylvek’s knowledge of English barely extended to Hello and Good Morning, with even basic instructions like “sit down” and “listen” understood only after cues from other Polish speaking students in the class.

Mark commented: “As part of our EAL programme, Sylvek has been using language support tools including Rosetta Stone, and has improved his English by leaps and bounds and so quickly, in fact, that he was put in charge of the lighting for Ingram Road’s Christmas play, Oliver – which required him to follow quite a complex script in English to get the timing right!”

“With the no translation approach, we have found Rosetta Stone to be an ideal solution for such a diverse school with so many different native languages.” —Mark Corkery, MFL co-ordinator and Year 6 teacher at Ingram Road Primary School

About Rosetta Stone Classroom

Rosetta Stone Classroom is a powerful learning tool that incorporates seamlessly into a teacher’s overall language learning curriculum. Features such as speech analysis tools, grammar, spelling components and predefined course templates adeptly complement classroom teaching expertise. Rosetta Stone Classroom provides the support teachers need with Rosetta Stone Manager, a built-in management tool that delivers real-time reporting capabilities, details on student progress and user-friendly administrative functionalities.

The software offers flexible licence solutions that are tailored to meet a school’s specific needs, technology environments and requirements. Available in more than 30 different languages, Rosetta Stone Classroom affords teachers the opportunity to entrust critical language skill development to the software so that invaluable classroom time can focus on topic-based activities that bring language learning to life.

About Rosetta Stone Ltd

Rosetta Stone is changing the way the world learns languages. Rosetta Stone offers a highly personalised, interactive platform that is acclaimed for its speed and power to unlock the natural language learning ability in everyone. Available in more than 30 languages, the Rosetta Stone language learning solution is used by schools, organisations and millions of individuals in over 150 countries throughout the world.

The company was founded in 1992 on the core beliefs that learning a language should be natural and instinctive, and that interactive technology can powerfully replicate the immersion experience and activate the natural language-learning ability in learners of any age.