Acknowledgements vi
Series Editors’ note vii
Abbreviations xii
Introduction 1
1 The context: Large- scale immigration to Ireland from the
mid- 1990s and its impact on primary schools 5
2 The English Language Proficiency Benchmarks 12
3 Exploring the relation between the English Language Proficiency
Benchmarks and classroom reality: Data collection and analysis 26
4 The English L2 development of 18 EAL pupils 66
5 English L2 development among EAL pupils ? results from the case
studies 158
6 Conclusion 210
Appendices
Appendix 1: CEFR self- assessment grid 219
Appendix 2: English Language Proficiency Benchmarks 222
Appendix 3: Transcription conventions 252
Appendix 4: Coding scheme 253
Appendix 5: Suggested adjustments to the Benchmarks 272
Appendix 6: Examples of L2 lexis produced by EAL pupils,
showing relation between their semantic fields and
units of work 291
Appendix 7: Qualitative overview of analysed indicators of EAL
pupils’ L2 acquisition 295
References 312
Author index 317
Subject index 319