Leading, teaching and learning
Why We Are a Language Friendly School By Jacob Huckle
D
ulwich College Suzhou (DCSZ) is an international school in Jiangsu province in the East of China that offers a Britishstyle curriculum leading to IGCSE and IB Diploma qualifications. We have a diverse student body consisting of multilingual students who speak a variety of languages, with the largest linguistic groups other than English being Mandarin and Korean. Our college has a reputation for high-quality English instruction that meets the needs of our different learners. In the senior school, for example, we have a curriculum model based around language pathways that allows us to deliver differentiated English courses to provide appropriate scaffolding and challenge for students with different language profiles, which is supported by first-language courses in Mandarin and Korean. At the same time, I think it’s important we also recognise that most schools – even those with culturally and linguistically diverse student and staff bodies – are underpinned by a monolingual bias (Barratt, 2018) that influences everything from curriculum to assessment. So, at DCSZ, we want to ensure we’re intentionally shifting our policies, practices, and beliefs towards ‘embracing multilingualism as a means of learning, a way of life, and a cherished value of our [community]’ (Soto & Gottlieb, 2020: 178). This transition from monolingualism to multilingualism is one of the essential shifts schools should undergo to ensure success for all learners (Soto & Gottlieb, 2020). We want to keep developing to ensure that we are truly living our values, including this core value in our school: We value the rich diversity of our students and families and support all students to be multilingual learners.
20 | International School | Spring 2022
What does it mean for an international school to truly value the linguistic and cultural diversity of its community? What does an international school that seriously embraces multilingualism look like? At Dulwich College Suzhou, we’ve been working through these questions during the last couple of years as we seek ways to become more inclusive and leverage the cultures and languages within our school. The IB describes multilingualism as a fact, a right, and a resource (IB, 2011). It’s a fact that international schools are multilingual and all children have the right to learn the languages of their family, the languages of the community in which they are living, and the language
