Multilingual Moments at TIS

“ Poetry  is the mother-tongue of the human race.” -Johann Georg Hamann In grade three, the students recently wrapped up its fourth unit of inquiry,  How We Express Ourselves .  The central idea behind this learning is that we use the arts to communicate messages. Against this backdrop, just before the spring break, the boys and girls in grade 3P had a “ poetry   slam ”, or a recital of  poetry , but from their home language or mother tongue.  Each student researched and chose a  poem  from their language, and practiced for a few days.  In many cases, they were getting support from home, from parents and grandparents with pronunciation, intonation and inflection.  The students were also encouraged to use gestures and actions to “perform” their  poem .  What parents and their teachers witnessed was a very animated display of cultural pride and enthusiasm.  The  poems  were re...

The World Economic Forum has published an article on how being multilingual can alter your experience of time.  We have known for some time that bilinguals go back and forth between their languages rapidly and often unconsciously – a phenomenon called  code-switching . But different languages also embody different worldviews and different ways of organising the world around us. The way that bilinguals handle these different ways of thinking has long been a mystery to language researchers. To read more, follow the LINK

Our grade 4 team at TIS has been using translanguaging for accessing the academic content for learners.  During their Where We Are in Place and Time Unit students have been inquiring into human migration. Ms.Julie Morris (Grade 4 ELL teacher) has shared with us some examples of multilingual moments which happen in grade 4. Central Idea: Human migration is a response to challenges, risks, and opportunities. Lines of inquiry: Reasons for migration Risks of migration Consequences of migration Below please find the LINK to their Unit Letter, as well as the LINK to questions to be discussed at home with family in students' home languages. Thank you for facilitating the discussions through the use of home languages and for encouraging the bilingual/multilingual approach for teaching and learning!

Teacher pushes her students to be united, not divided, by language By  Public Radio International, adapted by Newsela staff In Acacia WoodsChan's ethnic studies class at Castlemont High School in Oakland, California, students chat with each other in various languages.  They speak Spanish and Mam, which is a Mayan language from Guatemala, as well as Arabic, a language from the Middle East and North Africa.  The students have only been in the U.S. for a few weeks or months. Some are from Yemen, a country in the Middle East, and many are from countries in Central America — Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Last year, WoodsChan became concerned when she started hearing the Spanish-speaking students laugh when their classmates spoke Mam or Arabic, making fun of how those languages sounded. "You could literally look at the faces of the students who spoke those languages — Mam or Arabic — and just see the level of disappointment," she ...

Below we are sharing an article from the WIDA International Newsletter: March 2019  Multilingual Voices "The ECIS MLIE conference in London was a breath of fresh multilingual air, with its compelling theme “Multilingualism Through Unity: Growing Host, Home and Instructional Language.” WIDA was proud to sponsor this bi-annual event, which brought together scholars, practitioners and thought leaders. Together we inquired into how we can better serve multilingual learners in international schools, while conversations and presentations wove together insights from research and wisdom from the classroom. Student voices were one of the most powerful additions to this year’s conference. Fatima, a student from Tashkent International School, captivated three hundred educators with her rendition of Sujata Bhatt’s poem “Search for my tongue,” as she shared her TEDxYouth talk about identity and language. At MLIE, teachers shared ways to support students’ mother tongues and eng...

The Ployglots The Polyglots is an after school activity (ASA) at TIS which is aimed at celebrating multilingualism through interactive activities and reading online books. We play games such as 'HeadBanz' in English, Russian, and Uzbek to develop awareness of host country languages. The participants have been having fun trying the unusual sounds of Uzbek letters, as well as noticing cognates across languages. We have also been reading online books on BookBox website (www.bookbox.com) in the home languages of the participants. One of their favorite books is Zippy the Zebra, which is about symbiosis of animals. Sometimes we choose the main character (e.g turtle or zebra) and teach that word in our home languages to each other, as well as looking for cognates. Thank you dear participants for making the Polyglots ASA meaningful and fun! Rahmat! Спасибо! ありがとうございました! Merci! 谢谢 Link to the article Symbiosis - art of living together https://newsela.com/read/natgeo...

What language do deaf people think in? This is a tough question to answer. Aside from the science behind what language deaf people think in and whether this question can be answered or not,  there is a better way we can gain a clear insight into this. Why not ask deaf people themselves?  Michele Westfall  is our best candidate. Michele was born deaf, had deaf parents, and has deaf children. When she was asked what language do deaf people think in, she beautifully replied:   I was born Deaf and have been Deaf my whole life. I do not wear hearing aids or cochlear implants (and have no desire to wear either). I speak American sign language (ASL) and it is my primary language. I am a mother of two born-Deaf children, so our being Deaf is genetic for us.   I have a voice in my head, but it is not sound-based. I am a visual being, so in my head, I either see ASL signs, or pictures, or sometimes prin...