Discussion Topics

Collaborative Teaching: Enhancing Inclusion at International Schools

March 5, 2023

The opportunity for teachers to ply their trade in the international school setting offers many unique experiences, both professional and personal. From the professional perspective, none is more rewarding than engaging culturally diverse groups of students in their learning on a day-to-day basis. Every student in the class brings their own unique language experiences, beliefs and values, along with their travel and unique third-culture experiences. In these settings, the opportunity exists for teachers to extend their repertoire of teaching practice, to ensure all students are engaged in the learning journey in their classes.

As a teacher, one quickly learns to see students in the class for what they can do, and what they bring to the table in terms of classroom discussions, group work and dynamics. Additionally, each student has a unique view of classroom behavioural ‘norms’ through their own cultural lens. Some cultures have very few teacher-student interactions in the classroom, whilst in others, this is a constant. The latter can be quite a shock for students from particular cultures, and take some time to adjust, extending the well-known ‘silent period’. Often these students become the most outspoken in the class!

Viewing curriculum outcomes through various cultural lenses represented in the class is key to a teacher effectively engaging the students in their international school classes. Valuing each and every student’s views or experiences, and positively acknowledging the political and economic systems from which they come is paramount to a positive and engaging classroom culture, based upon the saying “just because it is different, does not make it wrong”.

The practicalities in terms of ‘scaffolding up’ for students whose first language is not the language of instruction at the school is a vital aspect of teaching in the international school sector. As teachers know, schools have various approaches to catering to students whose first language is not the language of instruction, from fully-sheltered language schools, to partially sheltered programs, and most recently the much-espoused collaborative teaching (co-teaching) domain. Having been fortunate enough to experience all three of these approaches, a well-organised and data-driven co-teaching program is the most effective for these students, both in terms of the all-important student well-being, along with academic performance. In short, in an effective co-teaching program, students feel connected to their school as they are not being sheltered away from the mainstream cohort for language lessons. In turn, students whose first language is the language of instruction are always in awe of what their peers achieve on a daily and hourly basis, this in turn makes the students in question extremely proud of their achievements, and this pride is clearly validated as they are seeing the academic bar which is set in their mainstream classrooms each and every lesson. Students rarely linguistically fossilise in effective co-teaching programs.

An effective co-teaching program in this context requires staff who are truly willing to share, collaborate and build professional relationships, through co-planning, co-teaching, co-assessing and co-reflecting through regular meetings (See Cycle of Collaboration graphic below). Having co-taught in this context across Year 6-8 Science and Humanities classes for six years, rest assured that co-teaching is the best professional development a teacher will ever have, and it is daily! Subject teachers become excellent academic language teachers, and language co-teachers become quite confident subject teachers. Effective co-teaching programs are first and foremost relationship-based, and without positive and collaborative staff relationships much effectiveness for effective student learning is sadly lost.

A Cycle of Collaboration

Students’ academic language proficiency progression is accelerated exponentially in effective co-teaching programs in upper primary and middle school year levels (see data provided below – school name withheld), however, the catch is students who are in the beginning phase of their academic language acquisition journey can for various reasons become lost in the shuffle and may require sheltered instruction to accompany their mainstream class experiences. Experience and data demonstrate that intermediate and advanced academic language level students thrive in true co-teaching environments. This linguistic progression is doubled down in terms of acceleration through an effective mother tongue program at the school, ensuring additive bilingualism is occurring.

The role of the co-teacher is to flesh out the academic language embedded in each unit of work and explain to students the regular independent study habits required to learn the required tier two and tier three academic language needed for each unit of work, prior to and during the teaching of the unit in question. Furthermore, effective co-teachers provide resources such as comprehension, pre-reading/viewing activities and provide notetaking scaffolds, along with support resources for production tasks such as structural scaffolds (relevant to text type), sentence frames and writing samples as required. There is much more to co-teaching than this brief overview, however these are very sound pillars upon which to build, along with knowing each student’s current year-level appropriate academic language proficiency in the reading, writing, speaking and listening domains. The wonderful by-product is that all students benefit from these ‘scaffold up’ resources, not only the students whose first language is not the school’s language of instruction.

Next time you apply for an international school role, ask if the school has a co-teaching program, because it is one of the most satisfying teaching experiences a teacher can enjoy, and proudly watch your students fly.

This article was submitted by Tim Hudson, an academic language acquisition expert with 34 years of experience in teaching and leading EAL and other subject department teams at the secondary level in international school settings, including Shanghai American School and more recently the Australian International School in Singapore. Tim was also instrumental in building the very successful international student program at Fraser Coast Anglican College in Queensland, Australia.

He is currently on sabbatical, offering tutoring services for EAL learners and consultancy services for schools in the EAL domain.

His skills include curriculum design, assisting schools new to this domain in developing context-appropriate EAL programs, and enhancing existing EAL programs in schools. He has extensive experience providing professional development to subject-teaching teams across the curriculum in the realm of academic language acquisition and has a passion for EAL co-teaching. You can reach him at aclangedge@gmail.com

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Information for Members

Analyzing the School Profiles on International School Community

November 7, 2016

Using the School Profile Search feature on the main homepage of International School Community, we found the following stats about the 1948 international schools currently listed on our website.  (Updated from our September 2015 statistics – 101 more schools!)

Total Schools with Comments: 922
Asia: 51
Caribbean: 22
Central America: 29
East Asia: 177
Eastern Europe: 52
Middle East: 127
North Africa: 35
North America: 40
Oceania: 5
SE Asia: 136
South America: 59
Sub-Saharan Africa: 58
Western Europe: 131

(East Asia has the most school profiles that have had comments submitted on them. 2nd place is almost a three-way tie with Western Europe, SE Asia and Middle East.)

Age of School:
Schools more than 51 years old: 427 ( 34)
Schools from 16-50 years old: 722 ( 33)
Schools from 0-15 years old: 799 ( 34)

(Our school database continues to grow!  We have increased around 30 some schools in all age categories.)

School Curriculum:
UK curriculum: 680 ( 50)
USA curriculum: 700 ( 68)
DP curriculum: 573 ( 23)

(The UK and USA curricula school continue to dominate our website.  On the other hand the DP schools represented on our website are becoming almost equal to those two.)

School Nature:
For-profit schools: 887 ( 93)
Non-profit schools: 1061 ( 8)

(Non-profit schools are still in the lead for international schools represented on International School Community.  For-profit schools are still on the increase though!)

School Region:
Schools in East Asia: 267 ( 18)
Schools in South America: 93 (same)
Schools in Middle East: 261 ( 9)
Schools in Western Europe: 285 ( 13)
Schools in SE Asia: 291 ( 16)

(The winner is now SE Asia, but East Asia, Western Europe and Middle East schools are creeping up. It seems as if there are limited options really if you would like to work at an international school in South America as there just aren’t that many international schools there.)

Number of Students:
Less than 300: 962 ( 64)
300-700: 486 ( 18)
700-1200: 258 ( 6)
More than 1200: 242 ( 13)

(There appears to be more international schools with very small student bodies.)

Feel free to make your own searches based on your criteria on International School Community.  You can search using up to eight different criteria (Region of the world, curriculum, school nature, number of students, country, age of school, metro population and kinds of student).  Members with premium membership are able to do unlimited searches on our website.  If you are already a member, you can easily renew your subscription on your profile page.  If you are not a member, become a member today!

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Highlighted Articles

The Finland Phenomenon – Inside the World’s Most Successful School Systems

August 21, 2016

Finland’s Education System has been the toast of the Education World with educators from all of the world all wanting to know what makes its tick & also one of the best systems in world, here is why…

WHY FINLAND EDUCATION

A little over 4 decades ago, Finland transformed its education system as part of the country’s economic recovery plan. Finnish students had become the best young readers by the time the 2000 Program for International Student Assessment (a global standardized test for 15-year-olds) results were published. Three years later, Finnish students led global students in Math, and by 2006 they were doing it again in science. Perhaps more important than their PISA results, however, was the take home that the Finnish school system is one of the most equitable in the world, i.e. performance variation among students in schools remains small.

Success of the Finnish education is based on providing equal opportunities for all. This means that in everyday school work the individual characteristics of everybody, including the strongest and weakest pupils, are taken into account. Providing equal opportunities for all results in even learning out comes as it does not depend on the geographical location or size of the schools nor pupil’s socio-economic background.

The success of providing equal opportunities for all is attested by the Finnish students’ performance in high level in all domains in PISA studies. An exceptionally small share of students are at the lowest proficiency level and there are relatively small differences between schools across the country.

Finland’s excellent learning outcomes are the result of research-based pedagogy and its innovative approach to teaching and learning. This pedagogy and the methods can be applied in different countries and societies, they are not based on the characteristics of the Finnish society. In Finland, teaching in not based on a specific religion or philosophy, thus the pedagogical approached used can be applied in various settings and societies.

In a study of the parents’ satisfaction on the quality of education and care in Qatar-Finland International School (established in Doha, Qatar in 2014) It was found that the parents were very satisfied with the quality of education and care. As quality elements parents emphasized enjoyment of the child, teaching methods, characteristics of the teachers and positive experience of home-school collaboration. The operations in Qatar-Finland International School are based on the Finnish National Core Curriculum but it is adapted to the Qatari standards and context. In the study no statistically significant difference between nationalities were found. In the study the parents also expressed satisfaction with the individualized learning possibilities and differentiated teaching. The findings of the study support the statement that the Finnish quality criteria responds to and can be adapted to the international education requirements.

Here are some links that you may find of interest:

1. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/top-20-education-systems-countries-20152016-anupam-vaid?trk=hp-feed-article-title-publish

2. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-finland-has-best-schools-anupam-vaid?published=t

3. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/11-ways-finlands-education-system-shows-us-less-more-anupam-vaid?published=t

4. http://hechingerreport.org/how-finland-broke-every-rule-and-created-a-top-school-system/

5. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/?no-ist

6. http://www.koulugroup.com/finnish-education/

This article was submitted by a guest author Anupam Viad, General Manager of Travel to Learn.

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School Profile Searches

Using the School Profile Search feature #16: Check out which schools met the criteria!

August 16, 2015

Only on International School Community will you be able to search for the perfect international school for you.  You get the possibility to search (using our unique search engine) for international schools based on the type of school that best fits your criteria.  There are many different kinds of international schools: ones that are small in student numbers to ones that have more than 1200 students, ones that are for-profit to ones that are non-profit, ones that are in very large cities to ones that are in towns of only 1000 people, etc.  Each international school teacher has their own type of school that best fits their needs as a teacher and as a professional.  Your personal life is also very important when you are trying to find the right match.  Most of us know what it is like to be working at an international school that doesn’t fit your needs, so it’s best to find one that does!

Utilizing the School Profile Search feature on International School Community, you can search our 1843 schools (updated from 1773 on January 2015) for the perfect school using up to 9 different criteria.  The 9 criteria are: Region of the world, Country, City, Curriculum, School Nature, Number of Students, Age of School, Kinds of Students and Metro Population.  You can do a school profile search in two different locations on our website: the Schools List page and on the side of every school profile page. Check out our past school profile search results here.

Search Result #16

Criteria selected:

1. Region of the world (Western Europe)
2. Country (All)
3. City (All)
4. Curriculum (DP)
5. School Nature (Non-profit)
6. No. of students (300-700)
7. Year founded (All)
8. Kinds of student (Mostly Int’l)
9. Metro Population (Medium 750K-3m)

The 16 international schools that met the criteria were found in 9 different countries and in 13 different cities. Here are a few that have had comments and information submitted on them:

International School of Helsinki (Helsinki, Finland) – 41 Comments
American School of Milan (Milan, Italy) – 23 Comments
American Overseas School of Rome (Rome, Italy) – 5 Comments
Marymount International School (Rome) (Rome, Italy) – 7 Comments
International School Turin (Turin, Italy) – 15 Comments
Oslo International School (Oslo, Norway) – 17 Comments
Carlucci American International School of Lisbon (Lisbon, Portugal) – 22 Comments
International School of the Stockholm Region (Stockholm, Sweden) – 7 Comments
ACS International School – Hillingdon Campus (Hillingdon, United Kingdom) – 10 Comments
UWC Atlantic College (St Donat’s, United Kingdom) – 14 Comments

Why not start your own searches now and then start finding information about the schools that best fit your needs (available to premium members only)?  Additionally, all premium members are able to access the 14309 comments and information (updated from 12936 on January 2015) that have been submitted on 864 international school profiles on our website.

*If you are not a member yet, join International School Community today and you will automatically get the ability to make unlimited searches to find the international schools that fit your criteria with a free 2-day trail of premium membership coupon code sent to you in your welcome email after joining.

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School Profile Searches

Using the School Profile Search feature #15: Check out which schools met the criteria!

January 28, 2015

Only on International School Community will you be able to search for the perfect international school for you.  You get the possibility to search (using our unique search engine) for international schools based on the type of school that best fits your criteria.  There are many different kinds of international schools: ones that are small in student numbers to ones that have more than 1200 students, ones that are for-profit to ones that are non-profit, ones that are in very large cities to ones that are in towns of only 1000 people, etc.  Each international school teacher has their own type of school that best fits their needs as a teacher and as a professional.  Your personal life is also very important when you are trying to find the right match.  Most of us know what it is like to be working at an international school that doesn’t fit your needs, so it’s best to find one that does!

Utilizing the School Profile Search feature on International School Community, you can search our 1773 schools (updated from 1606 on 20 February 2014) for the perfect school using up to 9 different criteria.  The 9 criteria are: Region of the world, Country, City, Curriculum, School Nature, Number of Students, Age of School, Kinds of Students and Metro Population.  You can do a school profile search in two different locations on our website: the Schools List page and on the side of every school profile page. Check out our past school profile search results here.

Search Result #15

Criteria selected:

1. Region of the world (East Asia)
2. Country (All)
3. City (All)
4. Curriculum (UK)
5. School Nature (All)
6. No. of students (All)
7. Year founded (All)
8. Kinds of student (Mostly Local)
9. Metro Population (All)

Schools Found: 15

The 15 international schools that met the criteria were found in 4 countries. Here are a few that have had comments and information submitted on them:

• Harbin No. 9 High School International Division (Songbei Campus) (Harbin, China) – 45 Comments
• Shanghai Rego International School (Shanghai, China) – 74 Comments
• Orchlon School (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia) – 68 Comments
• International School of Koje (Geoje, South Korea) – 48 Comments
• North London Collegiate School (Jeju) (Jeju-do, South Korea) – 19 Comments

Why not start your own searches now and then start finding information about the schools that best fit your needs?  Additionally, all premium members are able to access the 12936 comments and information (updated from 10304 on 20 February 2014) that have been submitted on 812 international school profiles on our website.

Join International School Community today and you will automatically get the ability to make unlimited searches to find the international schools that fit your criteria with a free 2-day trail of premium membership coupon code sent to you in your welcome email after joining.

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