OVERVIEW
A letter from the Head of the Lower school & the teachers to the parents
Dear parents,
As you know, Elodie Voleau, Caroline Bertier, and Hannah Le, your child’s teachers, have been taking advantage of the flexibility provided by the space and schedule of the 3rd-grade classrooms to adapt their teaching. Their innovative approach is a prime example of differentiated instruction in action—one that is particularly suited to our population of multilingual students.
The fluid format is new this year, and some of you have raised questions around whether this is an optimal way for students to learn. I’d like to take the opportunity to explain in greater detail the intent of this approach, and how it is executed.
Depending on students’ learning needs and topics in the curriculum, teachers rely on three different classroom configurations:
One Language, One Teacher
One Language, Two Teachers
Two Languages, Two Teachers
These configurations are made possible by the flexible wall between the two 3rd grade classrooms, and the three teachers working with the students in that grade.
In the One Language, One Teacher configuration, classes are conducted in French or English with a maximum of 19 students in the space; this format is used for art, PE, and music. Language arts classes are also conducted in a single language, but the English and French teachers work together to ensure that similar concepts (verbs, nouns, homophones, interrogative sentences, exclamations, etc.) are grasped in both languages by teaching these concepts in each language around the same time in the school year.
In the One Language, Two Teachers configuration, the two French teachers work together with all the students in one space. As they co-teach, the teachers are able to work with the students in smaller or bigger groups—broken out by academic level or language level, or in any other grouping that will allow students to learn best. In the infographics below, you can see some examples of how students can be teamed up to make the most of having two teachers in the classroom.
Elodie and Caroline co-teach for about one third of the French instruction time in disciplines such as social studies and language arts. The French teachers also co-teach with STEM specialist Isabelle Leblanc during science.
In the Two Languages, Two Teachers configuration, both classrooms can be opened and students are spread throughout the space, with the English and French teachers working with them either as a single group or split into smaller groups. This configuration allows students to use their full language repertoire—an opportunity they seldom have when the languages are separated. Research shows that languages are not separated inside the brain of a plurilingual student; rather, they are interrelated and dynamic. Students rely on their dominant language to help them learn the other one, and it is common to hear them mix languages in a sentence. This common practice in multilingual individuals is called translanguaging, and it is very normal.
Bilingual expert Francois Grosjean defines being bilingual not as speaking two languages perfectly but as using one’s full linguistic repertoire in a dynamic way, borrowing from all languages at the child’s disposal. I highly recommend watching this short lecture by another expert in bilingual education, Ofelia Garcia, about what translanguaging is and why it is important in the classroom.
As head of the Lower School, I have been monitoring very closely this new teaching development in the 3rd-grade classrooms, and I am already impressed by the results that this approach has had with the children. In just two months, students are taking more ownership of their learning. For instance, since they do not have assigned desks, they move around the classroom fluidly: they sit on pillows or use standing desks or gather around the collaborative table, depending on the need of the lesson at any given moment. The noise level in the room when the classes are combined is not higher than when they are not combined, and teachers have demonstrated excellent classroom management skills, thanks to clear classroom expectations, which were set at the beginning of the school year, for both G3-A and G3-B.
We value parents’ input and want to ensure that you are on board with our innovative approach to teaching in 3rd grade. To that end, we are pleased to invite parents to sit in on a class for an hour or more and observe the practice for themselves. You can access the class schedule here. Please reach out to Elodie Voleau at evoleau@eb.org or Caroline Bertier at cbertier@eb.org if you’d like to plan a visit.
Do let me know if you have any questions.
Kindly,
Sebastien Robert
Head of Lower School
