It’s an oft-cited stat within the international school sector that the split between local and non-local students is now around 80-20 per cent respectively - a complete switch from what it had always been in the past.

One major impact of this is a far greater need for international schools to work with students who have English as an additional language (EAL) needs and how that is managed.

Many schools approach this by adopting an “every lesson is a language lesson” mindset, whereby all teachers are expected to discuss new vocabulary, sentence construction and the language demands of their subject within their teaching.

However, at schools group Cognita, such has been the influx of students to its schools within South East Asia that, for the last few years, it has been doing something very different: intensive semester-long language acquisition programmes that run alongside mainstream classes.

“This approach is relatively new,” notes Mark Wenzel, director of education at Cognita Asia, “but it seems to be a really effective way to intensify English language learning.”

‘Strong bones’

Indeed, while the project began life at Stamford American International School (SAIS) in Singapore in 2020, it is now being used in Cognita schools in Vietnam, Thailand and others within Singapore to help more families allow their children to access a “Western” education, notes Ian Patrick Smith, regional leader of education innovation for Cognita in Asia.

“They’re looking for pathways into international school life that previously precluded quite a few international pupils who just didn’t have the English language proficiency to be successful, especially at secondary level.”

It was this need that led Cognita to consider a more intensive approach to language acquisition - and it turned to Smith to create the curriculum to do it: “I interviewed, got the job and arrived at Stamford, then they said, ‘All right, go into your office and put something together’”.

Which is exactly what he did. It wasn’t a quick process, though: “I took eight months to design the programme, hire the team, work out the spacing [of the content] and generally help crystallise it into its current form,” he recalls.

Smith says he is proud of the depth of this work, which he believes is one reason why it has been easily rolled out to other schools without many tweaks: “I talk a lot about having ‘strong bones’ - your programme has to be well designed from the outset, as that removes any tinkering later on.”

A tripod of teachers

So how does the programme - officially called Preparatory Course for Secondary (PCS) - work?

At its core is the idea that, rather than students trying to learn language within the mainstream classroom with occasional language acquisition lessons on the side, students who join and are identified as requiring rapid language acquisition spend 20 weeks as a dedicated language cohort who take their own classes every day.

These 20 weeks have an intensive focus on vocabulary acquisition, but also incorporate the content and concepts being taught in the mainstream, based around five key areas that overlap: maths; science; language and literature; individuals; and societies.

“I worked with heads of department, Middle Year Programme (MYP) coordinators and principals to make sure [the course] was linked to what we were teaching in our classes,” explains Smith.

The students then attend lessons taught by what Smith calls a “tripod” of teachers - one who focuses on maths and science, one for language, arts and humanities, and then an EAL specialist.

Between them, they focus on the mix of vocabulary and content knowledge that students need, as Rosie Short, one of the language acquisition teachers at SAIS, explains.

“By focusing first on equipping students with the vocabulary, sentence structures and comprehension strategies they need, we are giving them the tools to confidently step into an English-speaking classroom, often after coming from non-English speaking environments.”

She says that the success in this approach comes from the fact that students do this in a dedicated language learning environment, rather than being “expected to keep up with the rest of the class”.

“They follow a pace and progression that is specifically designed for language learners, reducing the pressure and allowing for deeper, more sustainable learning,” she adds.

Preview/review

Furthermore, to enhance the classroom work, students are also expected to work around lessons as part of a process called “preview/review”.

Smith says this is essentially a “flipped learning” activity where, for the “preview” element, students are told what is coming up and given key vocabulary and resources to engage with. “We don’t want them completely blindsided by what is coming up,” he says.

Then, when they come to the lesson, before the language learning begins, Smith says teachers encourage students to “get the cogs turning” by talking to other students in their mother tongue about the topic, or to write down what they learned in their own language.

“This trans-languaging portion is done in a very intentional manner,” he says. “Then we switch to English and start to help identify the bits they struggled with, or how they would say something they’ve just been discussing in English.”

Then, as part of the “review” side, teachers will return to topics after around two weeks to ensure knowledge has been retained and that any gaps or misconceptions can be addressed.

As well as vocabulary and course content, the cohort also learn about the specific language around the curricula and assessment they face - something that is especially important for IB students, says Smith.

“The IB has very specific language relating to assessments, inquiry, units of learning and so on. It’s a jargon in and of itself, so part of [the course] addresses how the system works, and the academic language that goes with that.”

Colour-coded reports

As students progress over the 20 weeks of the course, progress reports are sent home to parents. Originally, this was done using a red-amber-green colour-coded system intended to make clear the rate of progress, but this has since evolved into more detailed reports.

“Now we have three shades within each of those colours to show the nuance of where students are,” says Smith. “They cover different areas, from academic English to content mastery.”

Aside from the intensive language focus, there is time for students to engage with their mainstream colleagues to ensure they feel part of the school, as Short explains.

“Our students share the same campus and all its facilities, plus shared break and lunch times, with their peers, giving them daily opportunities to build friendships and engage socially,” she says.

“They attend mainstream school assemblies, take part in Spirit Week dressing-up, and are included in all school-wide celebrations, including international festivals and cultural events honouring their diverse backgrounds.”

There are also instances where they study alongside mainstream students, Wenzel explains. “Some classes, like physical education and certain arts subjects, are shared, because academic language might not be as necessary in these cases.”

Graduation - or another 20 weeks

Through this mix of intensive classes and mainstream mixing, the schools takes a view after 20 weeks as to whether or not students have the language skills required to “graduate” to the mainstream class.

“They need to have demonstrated, day in, day out, that they can fend for themselves in those classrooms, know how to ask the right questions and are raising their hands and getting involved,” says Smith.

In the first cohort to ever go through this process, 20 of 42 students graduated, meaning that just over half had to undertake another 20 weeks - something that is not uncommon, given the rigour and standards applied, Smith says.

That being the case, the second 20 weeks is not a repetition of the first 20, but a continuation that, again, broadly matches the mainstream, while also building up language skills and content knowledge.

After this second semester, Smith says, the students’ progress is monitored again, with most graduating at this point. However, in instances when a student does not hit the standard, the weekly reports should have prevented major shocks for parents.

“It’s never easy but if, for whatever reason, we get to a stage where we think the pupil is not going to meet the required standard, we can talk to parents and they’ll say, ‘It’s not a surprise - we’ve seen the report; it was a long shot’ and so on, and we then support them to find another school.”

Growth ahead

Smith claims, though, that such situations are “diminishingly small” and that the number of students who do “graduate” has spurred success - not just in terms of the number of schools running this programme but also as regards cohort sizes, which have increased from 43 in the first year at SAIS to more than 100 more recently, split into groups of around 34.

Furthermore, while the initial programme focused on Years 8-10, it has also expanded to cover all secondary years and all of primary at Brighton College (Singapore) - a phase at which Smith says the impact is rapid.

“The model works even better in a primary setting than it does in a secondary setting - these younger students pick up language quicker than their secondary classmates,” he says.

This is certainly an enticing thought to the many parents of local children seeking an international education who may, in the past, have worried about the language demands - something Wenzel says has been key to the programme’s success.

“Many parents have a dream for their children to go to the US, UK or Australia, and they see this as a really viable pathway,” he notes.

“When they see their children acquiring English pretty quickly and see the work they’re doing, I think parents get excited, because they see the progress.”

And with recent ISC Research suggesting that South East Asia is one of the main drivers of international school growth, this intensive approach to EAL may well continue to grow in popularity.