Frequently asked questions about
the full-language immersion program at
the International School of Tucson

What is the nature of IST’s Dual Language program?

Children spend three years in a full-immersion Spanish program from Pre-Kindergarten to Kindergarten, or roughly from age three up to age six; from Grade one, or approximately age six, the child spends half his/her day in a full-immersion Spanish program and half his/her day in a full-immersion English program. During this time, the child learns both languages through natural language-acquisition patterns. The aim of the Pre-Kindergarten / Kindergarten immersion program is that the child enters Grade One with equivalent levels of competency in both languages, thus the child develops two “mother tongues”.

What is the process by which a child learns 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.

What is the importance of the home language in developing a second 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.

Will my child become fluent in the immersion language?

he answer to this question depends on four factors :

• The child’s attitude, or whether s/he has the desire to learn the language

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.

• The child’s aptitude or whether s/he has the ability to learn the 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 utilized 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’.

• The time devoted to studying the language

Learning also includes actively using and the program is designed to ensure constant, authentic use. Students at IST not only learn the languages in the classroom, but also use them in all the School’s activities.

• The meaning of “fluent”.

Most children will reach a good degree of oral equivalency after the three-year Pre-Kindergarten / Kindergarten 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 English or Spanish, the expectation is for a relatively high degree of fluency after the three-year Pre-Kindergarten / Kindergarten 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.

Will learning in the immersion language give my child an advantage over children who use only one language?

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.

How can our family be an active supporter of my child’s work in the immersion language?

Parents can provide/support opportunities for authentic language experience outside the classroom:

• Vacation camps in a country where that language is spoken (with children who are native speakers of the second language), and/or stays with native-speaking families in the country
• Use of videos, tapes, CD-ROMs in the other language(s). English-speaking families should insist on these materials in Spanish.
• Actively listening to the child’s reading or recitation in the immersion language
• Arranging after-school and weekend contacts between the child and classmates who are native speakers
• Providing an “au pair” experience (a young native speaker of the immersion language who comes to spend an extended period of time in the home)

Will my child progress more slowly in his/her native language because s/he is also working on another language?

Again, 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 gains made 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.

How should I ensure that my child’s first language does not fall behind?

Parents should continue to use and honor the home language(s), while encouraging the immersion language(s) such as by providing reading material and other support in the home language. Parents should speak to their child(ren) in the language they would normally use; books, magazines, CD-ROMs should be organized by language and 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) and language games can be played in the supermarket, restaurant, zoo.

Parents should let their children know that they value 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.

What is the best age to begin study of the immersion language?

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.

How does IST teach reading in English and how much outside reading is required?

Children learn the skills of reading in the Pre-Kindergarten / Kindergarten program and these skills are directly transferable between English and Spanish. However, whereas Spanish has a fairly direct relationship between spelling and pronunciation, such a link in English can appear to be arbitrary, especially to a learner. Therefore the IST Kindergarten program includes weekly sessions on whole-group reading in English using the “Big Book” approach.

Outside reading in both languages is strongly encouraged and IST has a Library for this purpose; outside reading is not required until Grade One.

Is my child’s reading / writing / mathematics on the same level as his/her counterpart in the American system?

We expect the skills of IST students to be superior to those of their counterparts in other educational systems; these skills are evaluated regularly against the published standards of a number of US states and countries to ensure that IST students are at least at the level of their peers elsewhere.

If my child transfers to an American school after IST, will s/he be behind, ahead or on target?

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 the Elementary Sector (Grade 5), students typically score as well as, or better than, their cohort at American schools. However 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. It must be stressed that this is not significant as vocabulary presents the least challenge of any area in language acquisition. Similarly, it is important realize that comparisons of students’ knowledge are not really useful, and may even be unfair, as IST students study different topics from their counterparts.

How can my child keep up in English if another language is spoken at home?

The dominant language outside school is English and students have ample opportunities to develop listening, reading and viewing (receptive skills) in English. For this reason, activities in the English class tend focus more on speaking, writing and presenting (productive skills), although students’ normal daily social interactions outside school also provide opportunities to speak.

If my child does not learn to read in English until the first grade, will s/he catch up with American students who have started reading earlier?

Yes. Reading skills are transferable between Western languages and so those learned in Spanish transfer to English. The main difference between the languages lies in the sometimes apparently arbitrary relationship between spelling and pronunciation in English, and for this reason, the “Big Book” approach is used in Kindergarten to introduce students to reading in English.