Introduction: Connecting creative arts approaches with supporting children and young people developing English as an additional language

Over many years educators have expressed their commitment to drawing on and embedding the arts in education. Nut brown (2013: 3) explains this commitment as coming from the fact that ‘human beings need the arts for holistic development’. Sometime earlier, Rubens and Newland (1989: 5) noted the ‘equally important function of Art as an expressive discipline with its own traditions, language and values, capable of enriching all environments, societies, cultures and individuals’. The arts as a contributor to human development and as a language are central to the ideas and practical activities presented in this book which brings together the opportunities provided by creative arts in all their guises with approaches to teaching and learning in mainstream schools and colleges where children and young people are developing their skills in English as an Additional Language (henceforth EAL) and are learning alongside their peers who may also be multilingual speakers, as well as monolingual English speakers. The creative arts approaches explored in the book include making music, singing, drama and performing, printing, collage, drawing, writing poetry, film making and making embroidery.