The Journey to School: The Bermuda High School for Girls (Hamilton, Bermuda)

The journey to work is indeed an important one.  The journey though is not so clear for international school teachers, when looking for jobs at schools and cities/countries to which they have never been.  So let’s share what we know!

One of our members, who works at the The Bermuda High School for Girls (Hamilton, Bermuda) described her way to work as follows:

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Streams of cars full of parents and students + family pets roar by as I take the daily two-minute walk to school along the road.  The majority of roads in Bermuda don’t have footpaths…therefore Bermudian drivers have become accustomed to avoiding pedestrians.  I can feel the humidity levels are rising throughout the month of June, and my already dripping wet hair will take an hour-long usual to dry.  A number of students call out to me from their car window, and they are calling out to me saying “Hi, Miss!”  It is customary in Bermuda to always greet people no matter how many times you have seen and greeted them that day.  I respond by reciprocating the gesture.

As I approach the school crossing, the space between the wall and the cars narrow to the point that the cars are brushing against my own hip.  Mr. Smith, the school-crossing guard, holds out his hand to stop the already snail-paced traffic into the school, allowing me to cross and enter the school grounds.  Of course, I exchange greetings with him as well and he normally teases me about what I’m wearing (like if I’m wearing pink).  I have now entered the school ground and I am safe from the cars. I am now protected by a hand railing on the sidewalk that I am now using.  At this point I can withdraw from the greeting ceremony and look up BBC news on my phone.  A number of fathers are walking towards me in the other direction, having just dropped of their primary-aged children off at school.  They are dressed in a manner that is typical of the finance industry here, which is the Bermuda shorts and long socks and a long-sleeved shirt tucked into their shorts.

There is another little crossing to make and I again hold up traffic to cross and get to the main building.  As I am crossing the road I hear “Miss, Miss!” from a window two stories up.  A number of year 7s are hanging out the window, arms waving madly as if they have not seen you for two weeks.  I climb the steps and I’m officially in the building.

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Currently, we have 36 international schools listed in Taiwan on our website.  18 of them have had comments submitted on them by our members. Check out which ones here by using our school search feature and ticking the box ‘schools with comments’.

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So what is your journey to the international school you work at?  Earn 6 free months of premium membership to our website if you participate in this blog series – ‘The Journey to School’.  Email us here if you are interested.

New Survey: Does your school have an official English-only policy on their campus?

A new survey has arrived!

Topic:  Does your school have an official English-only policy on their campus?

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Many veteran international school teachers have already figured out that there are a nice “handful” of these types of international schools throughout the world.  Some teachers and administrators think this kind of English-only policy is a necessity for the success of their students; others teachers and administrators are quite against it…strongly against it. After teaching at an English-only policy international school, some teachers will choose never to teach in a school like that again because of their negative and painful experience trying to enforce it on their students.

There are many cons to having an English-only policy at an international school.  It’s likely that it is giving the wrong impression of what being an “internationally-minded” person is all about.

downloadInternational schools need to think very smartly about the makeup (language background) of their student body because of course that can affect what the “language of the playground” is. When the makeup is not balanced in a way that hinders the target language level/goal of the majority of the students (that the school wants them to achieve to), then of course many schools resort to a English-only policy to try to counteract that (for example at international schools with a majority of host country nationals)…and it would appear that not-well-thought-out solution fails almost every time. At least that is what was happening at a number of international schools nowadays.

Just because English is the target language of most international school classrooms, doesn’t mean that English is the superior or dominate language of the school; and teachers and administration should let their students and their parents know this in a clear, organized, and meaningful way. One suggestion on how to do this is to encourage an interlingual classroom.  In an interlingual classroom, students are encouraged to use their home languages in the classroom.  This suggestion will most likely not only be a new experience for you as the teacher, but also for your students…as they may not be used to being able to do this. In turn, some modeling and explicit examples on how to do this in a lesson would be necessary.

Another suggestion is to support multiliteracies in your classroom.

Share what your opinion is on this issue, as there are many perspectives and experiences at a variety of international schools that need to be shared with the rest of the community.

Also, go ahead and vote on Does your school have an official English-only policy on their campus? Go to the homepage of International School Community and submit your vote today!  You can check out the latest voting results here.

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We actually have a comment topic related this to this issue. It is called: Describe language abilities of students at this school and what is the “common language spoken in the hallways”? Is there one dominate culture group?

Right now there are over 560 individual comments (about 100s of different international schools) in this comment topic on our website.  Here are a few of them:

“There is a 30% cap on Thai students in order to maintain an international population. The other largest groups as of 2014 are U.S. (14%), Indian (8%), Japanese (6%), Australian (6%) and British (5%). Approximately 50 nationalities are represented in total. Most of the students are fully fluent in English, and unless with a small group of friends who share similar backgrounds, they tend to use English.” – NIST International School (Bangkok, Thailand) – 29 Comments

“The school requires students entering after kinder have been previously educated in English. I would say about 75% of the students are fluent in English, and the rest are in the ELL program. Students almost all speak English, even if they have friends who speak their native languages. I am not sure of the exact number, but I would guess about half of the students are native English speakers.” – Mont’Kiara International School (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) – 27 Comments

“ASM is truly an international school. The school strives to maintain what is called the “magical mix”, meaning 1/3 is American, 1/3 is Spanish, and 1/3 is from all over the world. For this reason, the English level is extremely high. A mix of predominantly English and Spanish is spoken in non-structured environments around campus.” – American School Madrid (Madrid, Spain) – 27 Comments

Traveling Around: Gurgaon, India (The life of an international school teacher is good!)

Traveling Around: Gurgaon, India

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Can you relate?

• Flying on Etihad Coral Economy class, more comfortable than most of European first classes.
• Changing planes at Abu Dhabi, one of the busiest, but one of the most beautiful airports ever.
• Arriving at Indira Ghandi International airport at New Delhi at 5 AM feeling that outside temperature is already 36°C
• Being picked up by a smiling, chatty driver although he had to wait for you for 2 more hours due to the delay of your arrival.
• Noticing that people are sleeping on their market booths and mattresses randomly placed along the road.
• Going through the metal detector on the entrance of your hotel in Gurgaon.
• Being waken up 3-4 times while trying to catch some sleep after your 10h long flight by hotel staff just to check if everything’s ok.
• Getting a massage at a hotel spa and being treated like a king for a more than reasonable price.
• Driving around Gurgaon during an evening rush hour, seeing many programmers and other workers going home from work.
• Seeing buildings with world’s most prominent IT and financials companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, KPMG, Ernst & Young, Deloitte, etc.
• Noticing that roads do not have any strict lanes, no street lights, forcing traffic to a way of self-organization.
• Going to a restaurant and seeing a family cooking dinner next to the parking, feeling ashamed.
• Feeling 45°C and the dry air in the middle of June.
• Feeling a strange smell of organic decomposing in the air.
• Learning about the civic system of India from local businessmen.
• FACT 1: There is no social security number or any other unique number for an Indian.
• FACT 2: There is no institutionalized healthcare institution -> all the medical services are paid in cash (or with credit cards).
• Learning that everyone here has a smart phone, although he/she might not even have a house. WhatsApp and Facebook communication is a must.
• Learning that in the last decade, getting the landline in your house was a cause for a family celebration.
• Eating specifically spicy and tasty food. Not knowing how to use all the cutlery in the right way.
• Getting your body measured for a suit at a local tailor’s shop using the finest Italian and English materials for twice as cheap as in Europe.

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Currently we have 6 international schools listed in Gurgaon, India on International School Community:

• Banyan Tree IB World School Gurgaon
• GD Goenka World School
• Lancers International School
• Manav Rachna International School
• Shalom Hill International School
• The Shri Ram School

If you are on a trip right now, away from your host country, write to us at admin@internationalschoolcommunity.com with your “Can you relate?” traveling experiences.  Tell us where you are traveling in the world, what you are seeing and how you are coping with any culture shock.  Once your Traveling Around experience is posted on our blog, International School Community will give you 6 free months of premium membership!

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