Supporting Home and Family Language

Supporting Home and Family Language

by Susie Clifford, Director of Learning; Ludi Kennedy, Secondary School French teacher; Alexis Kossiakoff, English as an Additional Language teacher

Over 90% of our students at YIS speak two or more languages. Our student body has over 20 different languages they access and over 70% communicate in more than one language on a daily basis. What a wonderful representation of our diversity, who we are, where we come from and what we bring to the YIS community. When you come on campus, you will hear these languages as students engage, communicate, socialise and learn. Language is our connection to our culture, our identity, our family and our friends. It is our way of making sense of the world and our intercultural community. Our Home and Family Language is the first language we learn to speak and is generally the language of our parents and family. We can have multiple home and family languages, and YIS students often do.
   
Students engage in their learning, and demonstrate their learning in English at YIS. They also use their Home and Family Languages (HFL) to dig deeper into learning, to consolidate their understanding of concepts and to extend their knowledge and skills. Students with a strong home language attain English proficiency at a faster rate and can access a deeper understanding of learning. Speaking more than one language exposes us to different perspectives and ways of expressing ourselves. Language learning at YIS is part of our curriculum, culture and who we are as a school as we aim to support all students to develop their multilingual skills.

During our Professional Learning Day recently, two teachers new to the school, Alexis Kossiakof and Ludivine Kennedy led the session: Supporting Home and Family Language in the Classroom. This is part of our ongoing professional learning to cater for all language learners in our classroom. Students need to develop a strong academic language and continuing development of their mother tongue supports this development of their academic language. Some strategies they shared included multilingual word walls and displays, students creating bilingual books and encouraging students to research in the language of their choice. We also explored translanguaging, identity and the benefits of bilingualism and multilingualism

Our diverse languages as a community and as individuals foster a sense of belonging and we are very committed to supporting our students’ Home and Family Language development. We host lessons in a variety of languages and are looking to widen our language classes. We currently have German, Korean and French HFL classes after school which are independently organised and run by external teachers, and supported by YIS with the use of facilities and resources. Our library is a wonderful place for you to find books to read at home with your children to support their home language and our community is always welcome in the library - 20% of our library collection is reading material in over 10 languages other than English. Support at home is essential for the development of Home and Family Language. Some ideas include:

  • Using your language regularly at home
  • Reading regularly with your child 
  • Sharing and learning about your culture and traditions
  • Watching movies, listening to music and talking about world events
  • Having fun and playing with languages 
  • Participating in Home and Family Language programs like ours that support the continued development of the language
female teacher teaching  5 students sitting around a low table

Home and Family Language courses are hosted by YIS after school on our campus.

If you are interested in learning more about our Home and Family Language options as YIS, please visit our website or contact Susie Clifford, Director of Learning.