Primary Years programme

Implementing the PYP in dual language schools

Report on questionnaire feedback

September 2007
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
Implementing the PYP in dual language schools
In October 2006, a questionnaire for dual language PYP schools was published on the OCC in English,
French and Spanish. The aim of the questionnaire was to gain information about implementation of
the PYP in schools with more than one language of instruction in order to inform future IBO
curriculum development. PYP coordinators were asked to complete the questionnaire in collaboration
with teachers at their schools.
In order to standardize the data as far as possible for the online questionnaire, a dual language school
was defined, firstly, as a school:
“delivering the curriculum through more than one language of instruction.”
and, secondly, as:
“A school with two languages of instruction available to each student.”
Schools that did not meet these criteria were asked not to respond to the questionnaire.

Section One – School Profile

 Seventy schools (candidate 25, IB World 45) responded to the questionnaire, out of a possible 85
(candidate 34, IB World 51), previously identified as dual language schools. This represents an
82% response rate.
The regional breakdown of these seventy schools is as follows:

IBAEM 4
IBLA 45
IBAP 11
IBNA 10

64.3% of all schools answering the online questionnaire were from the IBLA region (see Figure 1).

 Legal Status of schools:

Private school 87.2%
Government/state/national school 10.6%
Other 2.2%

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 35.7% of total respondents were candidate schools and 64.3% of total respondents were IB
World Schools.

 5.7% had been implementing the PYP for less than one year, 28.6% for 1-3 years, 31.4% for 3-5
years and 34.3% for more than five years.

 The following list shows the languages chosen by schools as their languages of instruction:

98.6% - English
68.6% - Spanish
12.9% - French
8.6% - Indonesian
7.1% - Mandarin
4.3% - Portuguese, Hebrew
2.9% - German, Arabic
1.4% - Dutch, Cantonese, Thai, Italian, Swedish.

 51.4% of respondents offer an additional language, as well as the languages of instruction. Of

these, the most popular additional language is French (17 schools), followed by Spanish (7
schools) and Mandarin (5 schools). Other languages specified include Portuguese, Arabic, Russian,
Hebrew, Bahasa Indonesian, Italian and Japanese. The age the additional language is introduced
and the number of hours per week spent teaching and learning it varies from school to school
(from one hour per day to one hour per week).

 70% of schools state that they have a written language policy and 60% of these schools say
review it every 1 – 3 years.

Section Two – The Students

 82.9% of schools describe their student population as being ‘mainly children whose mother
tongue is the language of the geographical region surrounding the school.’

Organization of language learning:

 72.9% of schools state that all students learn through the same languages of instruction, and that
these languages are introduced simultaneously at the same grade/year level.

 5.7% of schools say that students elect to learn through two languages of instruction, chosen out
of a number of languages available in the school.

 21.4% of schools say that one language of instruction is introduced at a later grade/year level
than the other.

 58.6% of schools say that students who require support in one of the languages of instruction
receive that support through differentiated instruction methods by their grade/year level teacher.

 61% of schools say that students requiring support in one of the languages of instruction receive
that support from a non-grade/year level teacher (such as ESL or learning support).

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 68.6% of schools hold the opinion that students should be able to engage in in-depth inquiry
equally well in both the languages of instruction by the time they move to secondary school.

Section Three – Implementing the PYP in a dual language system

 20% of schools say that the PYP coordinator is in a full-time administrative position, but 44.2% of
schools say that the coordinator spends less than 60% of their time administering the PYP.

 Over 78% of collaborative planning meetings are conducted in either English or Spanish, with the
next most used languages being French and Indonesian (5.7% each).

 Over 74% of schools state that single-subject teachers are either frequently or always present at
collaborative planning meetings. However, 57% of schools agree that single-subject teachers find
it hard to be part of the collaborative planning team.

Figure 2: Balance between languages of instruction (schools were able to select more than one
option)

All transdisciplinary units of inquiry are taught in both languages

44.3%
Some units of inquiry are taught in one language, and some are taught in the other
11.4%
Within each unit, some lines of inquiry are taught in one language and some in the other
35.7%
Some specific subject areas are taught in one language and some are taught in the other
of the two languages e.g. Mathematics is taught in English. Science is taught in French 18.6%

All units of inquiry are taught in one language; all subject area teaching (outside the
programme of inquiry) is in the other. 1.4%

Teachers of the language of instruction that is not the students’ mother tongue have to
deal with simpler lines of inquiry 41%

All units of inquiry in the early childhood section of the school are taught in one
language. 18.6%

Some subject areas are taught in one language and some in the other.
25%
Some units of inquiry are taught in one language and some in the other.
11.4%

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Implementation issues
The final question of the questionnaire asked for schools' opinions on different issues that had been
identified as possible difficulties for dual language schools when implementing the PYP. Schools were
asked to strongly agree/agree/disagree/strongly disagree with a number of statements. The overall
findings are presented in Figure 3, sorted into ‘Agree’ and ‘Disagree’.

Figure 3: Overall percentages for implementation issues

Agree Disagree
It is difficult to find the time to cover six
units of inquiry in one year (or four in early 54.3% 45.7%
childhood)

It is difficult to find the time to bring

students up to equal levels of proficiency in 70% 30%
both/all of the languages of instruction

Learning in more than one language slows

down the inquiry process 15.7% 84.3%

There are not enough easily accessible

resources for dual language schools (eg for 44.3% 55.7%
resourcing the library)

Teachers of the language of instruction

which is not the students’ mother tongue 41.4% 58.6%
have to deal with simpler lines of inquiry

It is difficult for teachers to find the balance

between teaching the language and
teaching through the language in the 62.9% 34.3%
programme of inquiry

Expectations from parents with regards to

proficiency in two languages are very 94.3% 5.7%
demanding

This part of the questionnaire asked for opinion, rather than factual data. Looking at these
statements, the findings were then combined with aspects of the factual data, such as the IBO region,
the number of years the school had been implementing the programme, and issues of language
learning within the school, such as whether the school offered an additional language and how much
time was spent learning language outside the programme of inquiry.

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Some of the most significant results from this analysis include:

 84.3% of schools disagree that learning through two languages slows down the inquiry process.

 While accessing dual language resources is not a problem for 56% of schools overall, 9 out of 11
schools in IBAP agree that it is an issue for them.

 63% of schools agree that it is difficult to find the balance between teaching the language and
teaching through the language in the programme of inquiry. In percentage terms, the region
agreeing most strongly with the statement is IBNA (7 out of 10 schools), but in terms of the
number of schools, IBLA, with 30 schools agreeing with the statement, shows the most significant
data.

 Over 94% of schools overall had agreed that expectations from parents with regards to
proficiency in two languages were very demanding. In IBLA, this percentage increased to nearly
98%, a total of 43 schools.

 90% of IBNA schools responding to the questionnaire (9 out of 10) overall agreed that it was
difficult to cover six units, whereas less than 10% of IBAP schools (1 out of 11) agreed. Figure 4 is
a graphic representation of this data, as well as of the data from the other regions.

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Figure 5, below, represents the time that the same group of schools are spending teaching language
(identified as language 1, language 2 and any additional language teaching) outside the programme of
inquiry.

This indicates that a total of 24 schools (63% of schools that expressed concern about developing six
units of inquiry per year) are spending more than 10 hours per week teaching language outside the
programme of inquiry.

In addition, the following findings were noted:

 Nearly 50% of schools agreeing with the statement that it is difficult to cover six units a year have
been implementing the programme for more than five years.

 50% of schools offering a language in addition to the two languages of instruction agreed with
the statement about the difficulty of covering six units in a year.

Further comments

At the end of the questionnaire schools were encouraged to comment on any aspect that they felt
had not been covered sufficiently in the questionnaire. Schools commented on many different aspects
of implementing the PYP in more than one language, including: finding bilingual staff; issues of
translating PYP documents for mother tongue teachers; varying levels of fluency and literacy in the
two languages; support systems for mother tongue learners, and difficulties writing a comprehensive
language scope and sequence document.

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A number of comments related to two key issues, and these have been summarised below:

1) The difficulty for younger students to inquire in depth in their additional language.

Schools commented that:

When using the immersion approach for the first three years, developing students’
questioning skills is very challenging.

Students in the early years are unable to participate due to the limited vocabulary they have
acquired up to that time.

It is very hard to find the balance between teaching the language and through the language
during the early years and the first two years of primary.

It is very difficult to achieve any real inquiry in an additional language when the children are
not strong in language, even their first language.

In first and second grade, the focus is on the formative reading and writing process, and
therefore the investigation will depend on the level of each child.

In early years, learning and understanding of concepts is difficult and a challenge for both
students and teachers.

Students are unable to reflect on their learning in an additional language.

2) Conceptual understanding in an additional language:

If there are any concepts or vocabulary that the children don't understand, the teacher will
use the mother tongue to clarify the meaning.

From third to fifth grade, the students possess the necessary linguistic and investigative skills
to be able to develop the inquiry to a higher level without worrying about the language.

There will always be better comprehension in the mother tongue than in the student’s
additional language in which structures need to be learned.

Students ought to be capable of speaking, reading and writing in two languages, independent
of the inquiry. On occasion, the inquiry can only be oral in the students’ additional language.

Learning through two languages helps the students to make connections between different
realities.
(September 2007)

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