Running an international school which hopes to support native language learning is challenging work. ISB’s 1,700 students “come from 60 countries and speak 40 languages”according to Avery Udagawa, ISB’s Native Language Coordinator.
Ultimately, a multi-step approach is necessary, which at times makes studying some languages a bit easier than others. ISB offers five Native Languages within the school day: English, Thai, Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin. Students may also study English, French, Spanish, or Mandarin as non-native languages. However, the process does not stop there, as nine native languages are taught in an after-school program (Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, and Spanish.)
Finally, all non-Thai students are required to study Thai for one year, yet these same students are not allowed to continue beyond that year, making Thai their second language course throughout high school. How and why has ISB ended up with such a dynamic yet complex system, and how well is it serving all of our students?
There are many different ways International Schools seek to provide sufficient language classes, recognizing that doing so requires lots of resources, time, and, planning. So how do international schools like ISB deal with this? According to Eleanor Brock, ISB’s Head of Department for Student Services and EAL teacher “[There are] several aspects where the school does an excellent job, but one thing I love is that for many of these students, their mother tongue is available as a language at ISB. So at the same time as they're improving their English, they're also continuing to improve their mother tongue.” Additionally, ISB has chosen to offer popular languages such as English, French, Spanish, Mandarin, and Japanese during the day. Resources might have affected these choices. All the previously mentioned in school languages unsurprisingly have an abundance of teachers and learners, making the chances higher that the right resources are available. Hence, their availability. Competent teachers can be found all over the globe. The same might not be the case for less frequently spoken or studied languages, where resources are scarcer, and therefore can only be offered after school or not at all.
Moreover, a lack of resources and students can affect currently offered courses “We [ISB] used to have Japanese as an A language, but we also used to have Japanese as a B language, but we no longer offer that because there weren't enough students taking that course.” According to Eleanor Brock, with less or little demand for certain courses it seemingly raises the probability of removal, which may affect students who were planning to/or who would take those courses. Resource issues are common problems schools might face for languages. Because resource problems are hard to fix, ISB and other international schools might not be able to support all languages. However, ISB has tried to alleviate this issue. Ms. Udagawa is ISB’s Native Language Coordinator, and her job is to coordinate native language classes after school for the nine languages not offered during the day, allowing students more access to their native languages.
If not all languages can equally be supported, what can be done? In the end, Translanguaging can serve as support. According to the Institute of Education Sciences (Pg.4), translanguaging can help students “Make space for students' bilingual or multilingual ways of knowing. Support students' social and emotional development and bilingual or multilingual identities.” Furthermore, usage of translanguaging has the potential to support bilingual and multilingual kids, to retain their skills in their mother language and English.