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IST Field Trips are literally trips to the field. In line with our experiential or skills-based or learning-by-doing approaches, Trips allow students to see in real life what they will be, are or have been studying, and so they always have pedagogical objectives. They do not mean bowling nor movies nor trips to the park. Field Trips are integral to the IST experience and complement the expert Visitors regularly brought in to speak to students.
Every Unit of Inquiry includes at least one Field Trip. Pre-School students typically take one Trip in a big yellow school-bus where the entire planning group (all P3 or P4 or P5 classes togther). Junior Schools students typically take 2 - 3 per Language A class where they shoot off for an hour, and then return to make use of their experiences or of the data they have collected. We have 27 pages of Field Trip opportunities in and around Tucson!!
Our students need to get out and about to know about where we live and what happens around us. We need to consider local resources and opportunities in choosing our Inquiries. Uplift and volcanic action affected our region; glaciers did not. Sun safety and responses to water scarcity are important concerns for Tucson; dealing with frostbite and levee construction are not. Javelinas and coyotes are in; pandas and koalas not.
In designing our Programme of Inquiry, we have two guiding principles -
Field Trips also allow us further to develop our programme values - respect, responsibility, curiosity, enthusiasm.
Yes. Reading skills are transferable between Western languages and so those learned in French / Spanish transfer to English, and many (such as prediction, recognising references to prior information) are transferable between Western languages and Arabic / Chinese. As we use the “Big Book” approach in the Foundation class, and because the students are able to differentiate between the sub-skills associated with each language, they quickly and easily read in English as well as in their other first language programme.
In fact, our Foundation year students learn to read and many become independent readers; all our students are independent readers by the end of semester one of J1. The amazing thing is that they learn the skills of reading in a non-English Language A, they in effect "teach themselves" to read in English by transferring those skills.
The dominant language in the community is English, and students have ample opportunities outside school to develop listening, reading and viewing (receptive skills) in English. Similarly, the common language amongst students who have different Languages A is English.
Entry to the Junior School requires basic conversational levels in both the student's Languages A, including English, and activities in Junior School classes, including English, give a greater emphasis to developing speaking, writing and presenting (productive) skills, while students’ normal daily social interactions during the Extra-Curricular programme and outside school will also provide opportunities to speak.
The answer to this question is, "It depends." In general terms, during the first few years your child may be slightly behind in English language areas because half the day is given over to another language. However, by the end of Junior School, IST students typically score better than their cohort at American schools when comparing to states with high academic expectations, or to other independent and private schools. Relative to Arizona, IST students are considerably further ahead in most areas due to the state's lower academic standards.
It should be noted that, while IST students will be conceptually equal to or ahead of their peers, because of the language-immersion program they might lack some English vocabulary items. This is not significant as vocabulary presents the least challenge of any area in language acquisition. Similarly, it is important realise that comparisons of students’ knowledge are not really useful, and may even be unfair, as IST students study different topics from their counterparts.
Firstly, there is no "American system". Programmes, expectations and standards vary not only state by state, but also district by district a state. The recently proposed national standards are an attempt to address this. It is important to remember that Arizona consistently appears at or near the bottom in educational surveys, so local standards are inadequate for our students.
Compared to Arizona standards, the skills of IST students are superior to those of their peers. (A contents comparison would not be appropriate because IST students study different topics.) These skills are also evaluated regularly against the published standards of various US states and other countries to provide comparative data and benchmarking and to ensure that we at least meet if not exceed them.
We also regularly compete in local and national contests (for example French language, Science and Engineering, Writing) which also allow for comparative data and benchmarking.
Children learn the skills of reading in the Pre-School programme and these skills are directly transferable between English and French / German / Spanish. The Foundation year learning target is for each student to be able to read by sounding out the syllables of the texts; some students will become independent readers while in this group.
However, whereas these languages have a fairly direct relationship between spelling and pronunciation, such a link in English can appear to be arbitrary, especially to a learner. Many IST students teach themselves to read in English by applying these skills, although like most native speakers they do have trouble pronouncing unfamiliar words when reading aloud. A special emphasis is placed on decoding and the common spelling / pronunciation groups in the first semester of J1, and the learning target is for all students to be independent readers while in this group.
For students in the Chinese programme, some reading skills are not as easily transferable to English; research shows that in fact different areas of the brain are used. However, these students do acquire the concepts and habits of reading, and the J1 approaches ensure that they reach the same level as their peers during J1.
The Junior School reading programme has three thrusts - close reading, wider reading and personal reading, Close reading is where the teacher sets a text which all students read - closely. Close reading is preparation for Middle School literary study and analysis, and JS students are introduced to these skills. Wider reading is where the teacher produces a number of books, as much as possible related to the current Unit, from which the students choose a specified number to read and which have a number of tasks to be completed. Personal reading is exactly that and students complete simple book reviews to show what they have read. Thus, students read both depth and breadth, quality and quantity, prescribed texts and free choice. They develop the reading skills of "reading with a purpose" and the reading habit of "reading for pleasure".
Outside reading ("wider" and "personal") in both languages A is strongly encouraged, and IST's Library is used for this purpose.
Essentially, the monolingual child can begin a second language at any time, although research indicates that the optimal period for rapid second-language acquisition is between the ages of 3 and 7. However, in the case of a truly bilingual family (father's native language is A, mother's is B), the child should learn to understand and speak both languages from birth and each parent should use his/her "authentic" language with the child.
Continue to use and honour your home language(s), while encouraging the immersion language(s), such as by providing reading material and other support in the home language. Language games can be played in the supermarket, restaurant, zoo. Books, magazines, CD-ROMs should be organised by language. Monolingual dictionaries in both languages are essential as they provide usage examples and more in the way of nuances and options, whereas bilingual dictionaries simply encourage translation rather than thinking in each language.
If two or more languages are used at home, they should be kept separate, for example the parent who principally speaks German should only speak in German, or family members agree to speak exclusively in one language on a particular day of the week (eg Japanese on Monday, Wednesday and Friday; English on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday).
Let your child(ren) know that you value his/her/their efforts in learning more than one language, and encourage them to take risks in their use of the languages they are learning rather than insist on accuracy. Accuracy comes after fluency, and fluency comes after confidence.
Yes and No. Yes in that s/he may be acquiring vocabulary and expressions in the non-home language because of encountering them at school, however lexical items are the easiest elements of a language to acquire and as soon as a child is exposed to the item and needs the item, s/he will acquire it. No in that s/he is still acquiring the deep structures and concepts of the home langauge which will emerge later.
Much depends on the individual child, and the circumstances at school and at home. Research has shown that, where a child has reached a certain level of oral competence in his or her primary language, a second oral language poses no great obstacle for continued progress in the first; there is generally little or no confusion for the child and s/he will progress in both languages, and in both oral and written forms without detriment to either language.
However, progress in both languages may be slower for some children than if those children were studying only one language, especially if comparisons are made on a vocabulary level. Nonetheless, the benefits gained through acquiring more than one language considerably outweigh any possible disadvantages and, after a certain number of years, especially after the languages have been fully integrated into the child's learning experience, progress in the native language will proceed as quickly as for a child learning only his/her native language.
Parents can provide/support opportunities for authentic language experience outside the classroom:
Yes. The ability to converse in another language is an obvious advantage in situations where the immersion language is essential or just helpful, such as for international travel, business, or study abroad inter alia. Researchers have shown that learning in one language enhances learning in another in that there will be a transfer of information, skills, and approaches to problems between the two languages the individual uses. In addition, research also indicates that learning more than one language “stretches” the brain leading to a general increase in intellectual and academic achievement. Finally, fluency in more than one language offers access to the culture(s) and literature(s) of those languages, and it is our firmly held belief that such knowledge leads to understanding and that understanding leads to peace.
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The answer to this question depends on four factors :
Students at IST are happy and enjoy doing what they do, and as a result they enjoy learning, whether it be Science, Mathematics or another language.
Children are born with a facility to learn multiple languages and certain areas of the brain are pre-programmed for language acquisition, although if these areas are not utilised as children grow older, the brain often reclaims them for other use. Research suggests that this begins to occur at around age 7, which helps explain why young children can learn more than one language and not have accents, whereas adults learning a language will inevitably ‘sound foreign’.
Learning also includes actively using and the programme is designed to ensure constant, authentic use. Students at IST not only learn the languages in the classroom, but also use them in activities outside the classroom.
Most children will reach a good degree of oral equivalency after the three-year Pre-School period, however a distinction needs be made between the acquisition of the immersion language where the child is surrounded by that language outside the school setting and the acquisition of immersion language where the child is surrounded by a different language.
For students who arrive at IST with little or no Language A, the expectation is for a relatively high degree of fluency after the three-year Pre-School period, although much also depends on the support children receive outside the classroom. Parents learning the same language, audio and visual support, trips to a country where the language is spoken and so on will all positively contribute to the progress a child will make in learning the target language.
Sometimes also called the “mother tongue” or the “first language”, the home language is important and a child who is strong in the home language will eventually be strong in the second language. Skills a child learns in the home language will transfer to the second language, so whether the home language is English, Chinese, Spanish or another language, it is an important factor in the process of learning a second language.
As with the acquisition of the mother tongue, first language or home language, a child first understands the language and then later learns to speak it by being surrounded by it. After some time at IST, the child will have a strong passive (or unspoken) vocabulary in the immersion language; s/he will understand most of what the teacher says, but may not be able to respond in that language (the “silent phase”). The second stage of language-learning, active oral expression, occurs as the child becomes comfortable verbally expressing and pronouncing the immersion language, and as the vocabulary and syntax of the language develop, the child will firstly read and then write in the new immersion language. Over an extended period of time, all of the above phases of language development will be fully integrated with the child.
Children spend three years in a full-immersion French / German / Spanish / other language programme in IST's Pre-School (Pre-Kindergarten to Kindergarten), or roughly from age three up to age six.
Ffrom Junior One, or approximately age six, the child spends half his/her day in a full-immersion French / German / Spanish / other language programme and half his/her day in a full-immersion English programme, although English is not mandatory and two non-English Languages A may be taken where resources allow. During this time, the child learns both languages through natural language-acquisition patterns.
The aim of the Pre-School immersion programme is that the child enters Junior One with equivalent levels of oral competency in both languages, thus the child develops two “mother tongues”. The aim of the Junior School immersion programme is that the child enters Middle School with equivalent levels of competency in both languages in listening / speaking and reading / writing.
Tax-deductible donations can be made electronically or in cheque-form sent directly to the School. We have four funds :
You may donate online to any of these funds by clicking on the links above. Please also visit our Support IST page for more information on these and other ways to help Tucson's international school.
Please note that all donations to IST qualify for a federal tax deduction, but only donations to scholarhips may qualify for the Arizona State Tax Credit.
Please contact the School for more information.
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