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Multilingual Boards

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At TIS we acknowledge and celebrate our cultural and linguistic diversity. We are an international community and many different cultures and languages are represented in every classroom. This is an opportunity to share and learn from each other.  From a language perspective, this is a wonderful opportunity to compare key terms related to Units of Inquiry, as well as Literacy, Math and PSEL, and to find the differences and similarities that can help us apply our knowledge of morphology and notice cognate words. One of the strategies we use at TIS Elementary school is creating a language profile and a multilingual board in the classrooms. It is fairly easy. Same home language speakers get into small groups.  Sometimes it can be just one person. They decide what color should represent their language. We then create a language color key for the class.  This multilingual board can be used as a reference to translate and access the content, as well as to add more vocabulary as...
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Interesting Read - 19 Totally Redundant and Tautological Place Names

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(Source: The Language Nerds The Language Nerds ) A tautology is an expression or phrase that says the same thing twice, just in a different way. Differently said, it is an expression that has two or more parts that are redundant, or synonymous. Most often, a tautology is considered undesirable and a fault of style and is avoided at all costs in literary works. Common speech, though, is filled with redundancies and tautologies. One famous redundant phrase that everybody uses is “ it is what it is ” right? Everybody can be redundant and tautologous, even George W. Bush when he famously said “Our nation must  come together  to  unite .” The names and expressions below are tautological in a different way. They’re unintentionally redundant. This happened because there is more than one language that goes into the name. Most people don’t understand how redundant these names are until they understand the foreign words that make them up. So here are the most famous places th...
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Indigenous  languages  make  inroads  into  public  schools (Source: www.newsela.com ) James Gensaw is a California high school teacher. He teaches the Yurok language. This is the language spoken by the Yurok people. They have lived in California for many hundreds of years. Colonization by white settlers almost destroyed their culture. Gensaw also advises his school's Native American Club. For years, the school asked for the same thing every November. It asked him to have students from the club perform Yurok dancing. The performances took place outside. Zoom-in Image 1. James Gensaw is one of 16 advanced-level Yurok language-keepers alive today. An enrolled Yurok tribal member, he is also part of the tribe's Yurok Language Program. Photo: Mneesha Gellman "It was nice that the school wanted to have us share our culture," Gensaw says. But "it wasn't always respectful. Some kids would make fun of the … dancers." They would imitate war cries and call out ...
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Home Language Read Aloud - WRAD 2022

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World Read Aloud Day (February 2, 2022)  By Nargiza Azizova On World Read Aloud Day students enjoyed reading in their home languages. Students expressed positive feelings and much enthusiasm about reading in their home languages. Some of them noted that they feel free, relaxed when they read in their home languages, because they understand the text well. They also shared their connections to their home cultures and identities when reading in their home languages. Students were eager to explained and share the specifics of their home languages (the alphabet, some cognate words with English, as well as descriptions of illustrations in the books and how they connect to the book content).  Some students enjoyed reading bilingual books as well. They said they feel proud to be able to speak more than one language.  Here are some videos and photos of students’ multilingual read aloud sessions.  Mironshoh and Amirbek reading an informative book in Russian Ellie and Seoyeon e...
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Author Visits on World Read Aloud Day (WRAD) 2022

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World Read Aloud Day at TIS - Elementary School (Published by Nargiza Azizova - Grade 3 Homeroom Teacher) On February 2-4, 2022 TIS community celebrated the World Read Aloud Day. Elementary school students enjoyed the Online Author Visits organized by our school librarian Ms.Sayyora Tairova. Grade 3 students enjoyed read aloud sessions by award winning international authors such as Laurie Ann Thompson, Dee Romito, and Mindy Yuksel.  The authors read some of their books to students, and answered many of the students’ questions related to the writing process and reading in general.  The authors talked about the many years of research, which often includes learning about the culture and native languages of the countries they focus on in their books. For example, the book Emmanuel's Dream  is based on a true story of a boy from Accra, Ghana. The author Laurie Ann Thompson spent over five years learning about Ghana while writing Emmanuel's story. This is impressive! Author Dee...
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Multilingual Karaoke

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 Grade 3 students have been enjoying our After School Activity - Multilingual Karaoke. Students select a song in their home language. Then they sing it and share the meaning of the song with the activity members. We try to learn some verses from the song and sing along. Students spot the cognates and notice the differences and similarities of different languages. Chinese song by Sissi  Russian song by Michael Korean song by Seungjun Hindi song by Nirvi Group performance of the song Believer
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International Mother Languages Day 2020 at TIS

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International Mother Languages Day 2020 By Nargiza.A On this day teachers and parents of TIS came together to celebrate the language diversity within our community, and students participated in interactive activities organized for them. We started the morning by multilingual read aloud sessions in elementary school, and students enjoyed listening to stories both in their home languages and foreign languages.  In the afternoon grades 2-5 actively participated at the Assembly dedicated to languages of the world and gained more understanding of why we celebrate IMLD.  Later in the afternoon students in the Early Learning Center had a special session ‘Drop Everything and Read’ during which they enjoyed reading books in their home languages. Thank you for supporting multilingualism at TIS!
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