Multilingual (Mother Tongue) Program

In alignment with the IB philosophy and protocols AISL supports the continuous development of multilingualism of our students. Cummins (2001) suggested that children need to maintain proficiency in their ‘Mother Tongue’ to assist in their developments in a second language. He highlighted that skills and knowledge in one language are transferable across languages to benefit both languages. Mother Tongue is defined as ‘the first language that you learn when you are a baby [child], rather than a language learned at school’  (Cambridge Dictionary).
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On Friday, 1 February at 07:15 in the Protea room, we would like to have an initial meeting with parents interested in their child/ren being involved in a Multilingual (Mother Tongue) program. Following successful programs in other international schools, the Multilingual program would be a parent-led program with lessons located at AISL after school hours. AISL will provide a suggested language development progression, classroom space and Modern Language standards guidance for language instructors to deliver instruction. These instructors would be located, employed and compensated by the parents of the students involved in the program. Currently at AISL there are number of students who have common home languages including; Spanish, Mandarin, French, Dutch, German, Swedish, Portuguese, and Afrikaans to name a few. Elisa Ingles Velasco, the current Primary School Spanish teacher, would be the contact person at AISL for logistical support.

Please click on the button below to indicate interest in the Multilingual Program and/or attendance in the meeting on Friday, 1 February at 07:15 in the Protea room.

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Click HERE to confirm interest

BICS and CALP: Empirical and Theoretical Status of the Distinction Jim Cummins The University of Toronto 
In: Street, B. & Hornberger, N. H. (Eds.). (2008). Encyclopedia of Language and Education,  2nd Edition, Volume 2: Literacy. (pp. 71-83). New York: Springer Science + Business 
Cummins, J. (2001). Negotiating identities: Education for empowerment in a diverse society (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: California Association for Bilingual Education.