UNESCO (2016) says, “Quality education should be delivered in the language spoken at home” (p. 1). This might seem to contradict bilingual learning. However, this quote from UNESCO is talking specifically about areas “where linguistic diversity is greatest such as in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia and the Pacific” (p. 1). In other words, they’re mostly focused on places where minorities struggle with marginalization. UNESCO isn’t necessarily saying that all students should be taught only in the language they speak at home. It’s simply asserting that they ought to at least have access to education in that language. I don’t teach in the type of area that UNESCO is targeting. Nevertheless, after teaching in well-off international schools for a few years, this statement echoes some of my own feelings.

As a teacher at a bilingual school (although most classes are in English) in Shanghai, my job depends on parents wanting their children to learn a language that isn’t spoken at home 100% of the time. Most of our students speak some English at home. Some of their parents are completely fluent in English, while others are perfectly conversant. Therefore, most of the students at my school speak at least some English at home—their daily life is in both English and one other language (mostly Mandarin, Korean, and Japanese).

In these situations, where there is at least some sort of English support system at home, I think formal education in a language other than the primary home language is fine. But we need to be careful about the balance between the students’ levels and the level of the material given. Consider the following quote from UNESCO (2016):

In many countries, large numbers of children are taught and take tests in languages that they do not speak at home, hindering the early acquisition of critically important reading and writing skills. Their parents may lack literacy skills or familiarity with official languages used in school, which can then reinforce gaps in learning opportunities between minority and majority language groups. (p. 2)

Again, this quote is assessing situations more dire than those my students face. But my school does sometimes make smaller versions of the missteps that UNESCO mentions. For example, one student that I tutor is routinely given worksheets with idiomatic English phrases far beyond his level. His teacher may be attempting to test something like subject-verb agreement, but the difficulty of the language surrounding this grammar point makes the sentence inaccessible to an EFL learner. It’s like trying to learn to ride a bike in the middle of traffic; the distractions make the main point impossible. When students are constantly barraged with material above their level, their development will certainly be hindered. Teachers at bilingual schools, then, need to be extra sensitive about hidden difficulties, like idiomatic language, unnecessarily elevated vocabulary, and unfamiliar cultural references.

Furthermore, at many international schools, we need to recognize more readily when students don’t have enough contact with their school’s primary language outside of school. Their parents know that English skills can help with future success, but they themselves have never faced the massive obstacle of learning English. Instead of helping their kids become more immersed in English, they create very defined boundaries: English at school, native language at home. I’m not trying to vilify these parents. They mean well, and they don’t fully understand the struggle of being educated in a foreign language. Nevertheless, we can’t escape the fact that some students will be left behind by this dynamic. Some are set to fail just because their parents like the idea of them studying at an international school. As teachers, we need to be better liaisons between the parents and the students. We need to chat with parents and provide ideas for creating bilingual environments at home. Here’s an example I often suggest: for every hour of Mandarin television, the student must watch an hour of English television.

This is a niche issue, I know. Among the world’s students, only a small percentage is in a well-off international school. But the issue is big enough that a major organization is concerned. The Association for the Advancement of International Education [AAIE] has a plan that largely includes such schools. The following is part of the AAIE’s plan (2012): “Develop new partnerships with organizations that focus on educational issues particularly salient in international and/or independent schools, e.g. curriculum design, language learning and acquisition, teacher recruitment, technology, and on-going facility renovation.” This acknowledges that even well funded international schools can have fundamental issues. We can’t assume that students who pass the entrance exams and can pay the tuition are ready for complete immersion into native-level materials. Further research must be done to find the flaws in international schools’ curricula and overall approach.

Works Cited

Association for the Advancement of International Education: AAIE Strategic Plan. (2013, June). Retrieved March 23, 2016, from http://www.aaie.org/page.cfm?p=372

United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. (2016). If you don’t understand, how can you learn? Global Education Monitoring Report, 1-9. Retrieved from https://en.unesco.org/gem-report/sites/gemreport/files/language_paper_references.pdf