Building Curious and Confident Multilingual Minds
At ISP, we believe that language is more than just a tool for communication—it’s a gateway to understanding diverse perspectives, celebrating identities, and unlocking future opportunities. That’s why multilingualism is a core part of our Learning.First™ approach and one of our key learning pillars alongside Academic Achievement, Life Competencies, International Opportunities and Future Pathways.
Our mission is clear: to create schools where linguistic diversity is celebrated as a strength, and every student is empowered to use their full linguistic repertoire to learn, grow, and thrive. And our educators play a crucial role in achieving this vision.
Supporting Educators, Empowering Students
We’ve recently wrapped up the first series of live sessions for school leaders as part of our new Multilingualism Professional Learning Pathway (MLP). It’s been an incredible journey—full of inspiration, collaboration, and shared growth.
Judging by the feedback so far, the experience has been equally rewarding for our facilitators and global educators alike:
Ruth Radwan, Head of Multilingualism at ISP, who has developed the programme in partnership with international experts and champions multilingualism across the organisation, reflected on the experience saying:
‘One of the most inspiring elements of facilitating the live interactive sessions was listening to highly skilled educators sharing their practical understandings of how to support multilingual learners, making the learning both relevant and actionable. The collaboration between specialists, both regionally and globally, was both productive and transformative.’
Here is what one of the participants had to say about taking part in the sessions:
“This has been one of the most engaging and insightful courses I’ve taken. It provided a comprehensive overview of Multilingualism at ISP and expanded my knowledge across many areas. While we often gain insights from our daily work, this course has given me the tools to organize, structure, and prioritize what truly matters, bringing a new level of clarity and focus to my approach.”
Our goal? To bring ISP’s vision for multilingualism to life in a way that resonates with every stakeholder in our schools. By supporting leaders in contextualizing and activating this vision, we’re ensuring everyone feels confident in creating inclusive, language-rich environments where students can truly thrive.
What Does Multilingualism Look Like at ISP?
As a Learning.First organisation, students and their learning are always at the heart of what we do. Our multilingualism strategy is no exception. Here’s how we envision multilingualism transforming our schools:
- Celebrating Identity: Honouring and supporting the unique linguistic and cultural identities that each student and educator brings.
- Building Community: Creating a ‘multilingual habitus’* in all our schools that embraces linguistic diversity as a strength, enriching everyone’s experiences.
- Empowering Educators: Equipping teachers with the skills and knowledge to design high-impact, evidence-based learning experiences.
- Strengthening Language Proficiency: Supporting every student to develop academic literacy in both their home language and at least one global language.
- Opening Future Pathways: Ensuring students’ linguistic abilities unlock the futures they dream of pursuing.
Engaging with Families
A key conversation emerging from this learning journey is how schools can help families understand the importance of developing academic literacy in home languages. Parents often prioritise global languages, like English or Spanish, without realizing that neglecting home languages can limit their child’s long-term personal and academic growth.
Another common topic is finding the right balance: helping students achieve fluency in the primary language of education (often English) while also fostering strong literacy skills in their home languages.
Making It happen
When these challenges arise, we encourage schools to tap into research and proven practices. For instance, leading experts like Jim Cummins explain the development of everyday communication (BICS) and deeper academic language skills (CALP), which commonly takes at least six years, so that international educators can understand multilingual learners’ language learning journeys. Recent studies (e.g., Carbonara & Scibetta, 2020; Cummins & Persad, 2014; García & Kleyn, 2016) show that multilingual teaching approaches, such as pedagogical translanguaging – intertwining languages and keeping them together rather than separate – not only improves academic performance but also enhances literacy in both home and school languages, boosts metalinguistic awareness, fosters collaboration, builds inclusive learning environments and validates multilingual learners’ identities. One could even go so far as to say that it unlocks limitless learning.
Sharing this understanding with families is crucial. By doing so, we strengthen the home-school partnership that underpins every student’s success.
A helpful visual overview of this research can be seen in this figure from Chaika, 2023:
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Chaika, 2023
Creating lasting change takes time. It calls for whole-school collaboration, ongoing teacher development, and a clearly shared vision that everyone in the community can rally around. Across our network of more than 90 schools, we see this vision taking shape. Each school is at its own stage in the journey, but they are all united by a shared dedication to creating linguistically inclusive spaces, celebrating diversity, and continually striving to grow as educators and learners.
Together, we’re building curious and confident multilingual minds.
“As a Learning.First organisation, we put learners and their learning at the centre of everything we do.”
*This term refers to the concept that the norms, structures and content of learning assume that learners have multilingual identities and unique linguistic repertoires and that these should be utilised to facilitate multilingual competencies and learning spaces that are favourable for the development of multilingualism.
References
- Chaika, O. (2023) ‘Translanguaging in multilingual classrooms: A case study analysis’, Philological Review, (1), pp. 127–135. doi:10.31499/2415-8828.1.2023.281366.
- Cummins, J. (in press). Translanguaging: A critical analysis of theoretical claims. In P. Juvonen & M. Källkvist (Eds.) Pedagogical Translanguaging: Theoretical, Methodological and Empirical Perspectives. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
- Cummins, J. and Early, M. (2011) Identity texts: The collaborative creation of power in multilingual schools. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books.
- Cummins, J., & Persad, R. (2014). Teaching through a Multilingual Lens: The Evolution of EAL Policy and Practice in Canada. Education Matters, 2, 3-40.
- García O., & T. Kleyn. T (2016). Translanguaging with Multilingual Students: Learning from Classroom Moments . New York and Abingdon: Routledge. Pp. xiii + 242. US160(hardcover);US49.95 (paper).
- Pires Pereira, Í. S. (2021). Engaging with linguistic diversity. A study of educational inclusion in an Irish Primary School: by David Little and Déirdre Kirwan, London, Bloomsbury, 2019, 190 pp., £20.87 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1-3500-7203-9. Education 3-13, 51(2), 365–369. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2021.1970205
- Prasad, G. (2015) ‘Beyond the mirror towards a plurilingual prism: exploring the creation of plurilingual ‘identity texts’ in English and French classrooms in Toronto and Montpellier’, Intercultural Education, 26(6), pp. 497–514. doi: 10.1080/14675986.2015.1109775.
- Scibetta, A., & Carbonara, V. (2020). Unveiling discourses on interculturality and identity construction in primary schools in Italy: a study based on translanguaging pedagogy. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 15(4), 422–435. https://doi.org/10.1080/17447143.2020.1768397
