case study: delivering a bilingual education education ...delivering a bilingual education...

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CASE STUDY: Delivering a Bilingual Education Education Curriculum within a

within a Pre-School and Primary School Setting

Maria GavrilovaAzbuka Foundation

twww.azbukafoundation.org

• Benefits of bilingual education– much more than just improving language skills. Fluency in another language alongside academic achievement

• Advantages of immersion education for both minority and majority language students

• AZBUKA foundation as one of England’s first educational settings delivering a full bilingual education curriculum, and the first to include Russian and English

• School philosophy, curriculum, planning, assessment, progress and attainments. Achieving GOOD inspection report

• Adopting and developing world’s best practice of bilingual education for the benefits of children, families and wider community


Delivering A Bilingual Education Curriculum within A Pre-School And Primary School Setting

• Bilingual education (or content and language integrated learning) is the world’s leading methodology or educational approach for foreign and second language teaching and learning. Bilingual education has a long history and comes in different forms and models of delivery, varying by the languages of instructions as well as language distribution in the curriculum.

• Immersion education is of the most common school-based types of bilingual education programme. There are thousands of bilingual language immersion schools in the US, Europe and Asia. With the growing socio-economic mobility of the population and global economy they currently gain popularity around the world.

• In schools with immersion curriculum children immerse in another language while learning academic content. In such schools language is not taught as a subject, but subjects are taught (curriculum is implemented) in one or more languages.


Benefits of immersion education for both minority and majority language students – research findings in brief

• Language and Literacy. Children achieve much higher degree of fluency in a second language and literacy as well as communicative and cultural competence (compared to schools where language is taught as a subject). This approach to second-language and literacy development proved itself to be the most successful school-based language programme model available.

• Academic (educational). Academic attainments in all subjects and in core subjects (literacy, reading and maths) are not jeopardised. For English native speakers and English learners from different ethnicities, language backgrounds, socio-economic levels, and developmental profiles perform ‘at least as well’ as same background peers being schooled in English only.


• Cognitive. Fully proficient bilinguals outperform monolinguals in the areas of creative thinking, multi-tasking, problem solving, metalinguistic abilities among others.

• Economic and socio-cultural. Employment possibilities in different areas of life -diplomacy, economic competitiveness, international trade, national security and law enforcement. Cultural understanding and cultural agility for individuals, business and government. Enriches world experiences – culture, arts, travel.

Benefits – research findings in brief

Source: after CARLA


AZBUKA: 18 years of Growth and Development

Azbuka is established as

a Russian children’s cultural centre.

Russian Saturday School

opens with a specially devised education

programme (Russian in the context of bilingualism)

for older children.

England’s first Russian nursery opens and is registered with

Ofsted in West London in Richmond-upon-Thames

borough.

Azbuka is awarded special status by the

Department of Education as a pre-school institution offering a

programme of language immersion with teaching in the Russian language.

It is one of England’s first non-English pre-school language

programmes

Azbuka Foundationis registered as a charitable,

not-for-profit organisation led by a Board of Trustees. The

principal objective is the creation of an innovative, totally

Russian-English education programme, with all existing

ventures managed by Azbuka Foundation

2001

2002 2011

2013

2016

2005

2017 – First full Ofsted Report. Uk’s first

Russian – English bilingual school has been given high ratings across all four areas examined by

Ofsted, following a successful inspection by the official government auditor of education standards.

2017

2018

2018 – Azbuka moves to its long

term home to Hammersmith.

Expansion of School to Year 3

Azbuka School opens with a totally

Russian-English reception class and

Year One.

Bilingual education resource for the

wider community


AZBUKA as one of England’s first educational settings delivering a full bilingual education curriculum, and the first to include Russian and English

• Long track record introducing (to England) and developing the world’s most successful educational approaches in the area of foreign language teaching

• AZBUKA was launched in 2002 as a Russian immersion pre-school. After a lengthy debate with the Department for Education it became one of the first language immersion pre-school settings working within EYFS legislation

• Bilingual education resource – open to academic research, sharing good practice and open to joint /pilot projects with state and other schools, CPD training within local authorities and wider community

• 2015 expansion into a full-time Primary school with a bilingual education, two-way immersion curriculum


Azbuka School – key facts


• Azbuka School operates as a British Independent School implementing a bilingual education curriculum

• Philosophy• Fluency in spoken language and literacy, as well as bi-

cultural awareness – in both English and Russian alongside strong academic achievement

• Run as a not-for-profit organisation (registered charity), governed by board of trustees

• Linguistic and cultural profiles of families and children• Bi-multilingual families (incl. English, Russian, German,

French, Swedish , Thai etc.)• Russian 2nd generation families• English monolingual families

• Teaching staff• English (native) teachers• Russian (native) or Russian speaking teachers (Baltic

States and other FSU states e.g. Kazakhstan)• Training & qualifications from UK, western Europe, Baltic

States, Russia, USA• Ongoing CPD training, UK and international educational

and bilingual education conferences, and academic collaboration




• Language distribution in the curriculum• Nursery level – 90%• Reception – 70 % Russian : 30% English• From year 1 onwards – 50% : 50% in core subjects

• Curriculum• Additive bilingual curriculum, combining English

national and Russian curriculum• Value placed on science, music and arts• Third language is being introduced at year 4

• Planning and assessments – undertaken jointly by Russian and English partner teachers.


Language distribution in the curriculum



Half-termly

language

distribution

Half term 1 Half term 2 Half term 3 Half term 4 Half term 5 Half term 6

80% All areas of

learning

All areas of

learning

All areas of

learning

All areas of

learning

All areas of

learning

All areas of

learning

20 % All areas of

learning

All areas of

learning

All areas of

learning

All areas of

learning

All areas of

learning

All areas of

learning

Early Years (Nursery/Reception) 2-4 years old



Half-termly

language

distribution

Half term 1 Half term 2 Half term 3 Half term 4 Half term 5 Half term 6

50 %

Core subjects

Maths

Russian

Core subjects

Maths

English

Core subjects

Maths

Russian

Core subjects

Maths

English

Core subjects

Maths

Russian

Core subjects

Maths

English

50 % English

Science/Hist/Geo

ICT

Russian

Science/Hist/Geo

ICT

English

Science/Hist/Geo

ICT

Russian

Science/Hist/Geo

ICT

English

Science/Hist/Geo

ICT

Russian

Science/Hist/Geo

ICT

50 % All other subjects

PE / Art / Music

All other subjects

PE / Art / Music

All other subjects

PE / Art / Music

All other subjects

PE / Art / Music

All other subjects

PE / Art / Music

All other subjects

PE / Art / Music50 %

Clubs Rus/Eng Rus/Eng Rus/Eng Rus/Eng Rus/Eng Rus/Eng

Events and

Cultural

Centre

Rus/Eng Rus/Eng Rus/Eng Rus/Eng Rus/Eng Rus/Eng

Year 1 to Year 6 (5-11 years old)


KS1 – KS2 children on the way to bilingualism and biliteracy


KS1 – KS2 children on the way to bilingualism and biliteracy

School display & School Council


Adopting and developing world’s best practice of bilingual education for the benefits of children, families and wider community in England

Bilingual education pedagogy is proven to deliver linguistic, academic, cognitive, cultural and economic benefits.

London is ideally positioned to explore and take advantage of this proven method and educational approach. The city has: large and diverse communities of different languages & culture; easy access to the global teaching resources; global centre for business and academia, and; English – as the language in which significant body of research and educational practice has been accumulated over the years (mostly US and Canada).

All of the above present themselves as concrete advantages that could be easily drawn upon to facilitate growth in the area of bilingual education, administration and implementation (planning, curriculum, teacher training, resources, assessment, development).

All it needs is sincere belief in the value of foreign languages and long-term commitment by policy makers, major stakeholders in education and funding bodies.

Good luck! Bonne chance! Buena suerte! Удачи!


THANK YOU!

Additional Resources:

Language Teaching in Schools (England) – Parliamentary Briefing Paper, House of Commons Library (Dec 2018) https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7388

Value of Languages Report (2015), Cambridge Public Policy https://www.publicpolicy.cam.ac.uk/research-impact/value-of-languages

Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) https://carla.umn.edu/

Bilingualism Matters http://www.bilingualism-matters.ppls.ed.ac.uk/

AZBUKA Foundation http://www.azbukafoundation.org/

Email: [email protected]

© AZBUKA Foundation

http://www.azbukafoundation.org/

case study: delivering a bilingual education education ...delivering a bilingual education...

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