A trilingual school's strategy

[Joan in Geneva]

There's a new school that will be opening here whose goal is to give a fully trilingual education to students who are educated there for 12 years (from K1 to grade 10).

I'm mentioning it here because I thought you might be interested in their "plan" of how to do it...

They're starting with French speakers...In the beginning, for German and English, the priority will be given to gym, drawing, and "autres branches à tonalité récréative". (I can't quite figure out how to translate that last).

But by the end of their education, each subject will have been taught in each of the three languages at least 3 times, according to an annual rotation system. (this was in the newspaper article)

They say that will permit the transfer of specialized vocabulary from one language to another.

Evidently there aren't many trilingual schools in existence to see if this can really work. And this will take 12 years to see if it works....

Ecole St. Exupery (http://www.saint-exupery.ch/ped_a_fr.html)...

Joan

[USDGAL]

That sounds interesting.

Danielle

[blessedmom3]

C'est interesant . I wish I lived there :)
I think it will work .
I am trilingual and I speak to the kids English, French and Romanian. They pick up easily. But we do school work in English only because that's how the curriculum is. We do read some French &Romanian books though as time allows .

[CleoQc]

We have quite a few trilingual schools around here.
One that I know of is German/French/English, another one is Spanish/French/English, and yet another one is Mandarin or Italian/French/English

One of those is actually a group of schools that are spread around the city. I think they have 3 to 5 schools under the same name

[Rosie_0801]

That sounds like the Chalet School books I used to love. I always wished it existed and I could afford to go there!

:)
Rosie

[CleoQc]

Here's a link to a trillingual Montessori school in town
http://www.ecolemontessorimontreal.com/

Link to that group of schools:
http://www.ecolita.ca/

And the German school
http://www.avh.montreal.qc.ca/fra/schule/uber_uns.html
(hmm, I just spent a few minutes reading that last website and noticed quite a few French mistakes.. :( )

[Joan in Geneva]

Those are interesting links. None of them explain clearly how they will do it (and neither does mine - it was only from the newspaper article that I was able to share - but I'm curious what their strategy is in Canada).

I find the Swiss strategy a good idea except that you would basically need to have the same system of books published in the three languages...

Someone asked about math in another language on another thread...we do since my dc have to take Swiss tests, but then we have the books in French to learn the vocab and what concepts are being tested in the grade. We always use the English math books as a base because if you jump around from one program to another, then you risk getting "holes".

Different countries have different orders of presenting information, eg fractions are presented very late at least here in Swiss romande. (A friend recently told me why she thinks Europeans have less experience with fractions....since all the US measurements in cups, inches, etc have 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, etc Americans get lots of experience. But in Europe, they're using the metric system and so hardly ever have to deal with fractions on a day to day basis. They weigh the ingredients for recipes, etc). So at least here, they are learning fractions in 7th grade that we learned in 3rd grade or even earlier.

Anyway, I'm using that example to illustrate that I don't know how they do sequential type of studies without using the same books which you hardly ever find translated into three languages with the same information....otherwise they'd end up having to develop all of their own materials...which is too much for me to do...

Joan

[USDGAL]

Those are interesting links. None of them explain clearly how they will do it (and neither does mine - it was only from the newspaper article that I was able to share - but I'm curious what their strategy is in Canada).

I find the Swiss strategy a good idea except that you would basically need to have the same system of books published in the three languages...

Someone asked about math in another language on another thread...we do since my dc have to take Swiss tests, but then we have the books in French to learn the vocab and what concepts are being tested in the grade. We always use the English math books as a base because if you jump around from one program to another, then you risk getting "holes".

Different countries have different orders of presenting information, eg fractions are presented very late at least here in Swiss romande. (A friend recently told me why she thinks Europeans have less experience with fractions....since all the US measurements in cups, inches, etc have 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, etc Americans get lots of experience. But in Europe, they're using the metric system and so hardly ever have to deal with fractions on a day to day basis. They weigh the ingredients for recipes, etc). So at least here, they are learning fractions in 7th grade that we learned in 3rd grade or even earlier.

Anyway, I'm using that example to illustrate that I don't know how they do sequential type of studies without using the same books which you hardly ever find translated into three languages with the same information....otherwise they'd end up having to develop all of their own materials...which is too much for me to do...

Joan

They likely don't want to give away any secrets. SOme private schools are very protective of their techniques and even their book lists. Geesh, throw us homeschooling mommies a bone. :lol:

Danielle

[cathmom]

Here's a link to a trillingual Montessori school in town
http://www.ecolemontessorimontreal.com/



That's it - I am moving to Montreal and enrolling my dc there!

[Ester Maria]

Anyway, I'm using that example to illustrate that I don't know how they do sequential type of studies without using the same books which you hardly ever find translated into three languages with the same information....
No, they don't do it. They usually "specialize", i.e. "split" the subjects so you have X ones, Y ones and Z ones, and study all three languages with literatures in addition to that. So they usually do the whole progression in one subject per "level" (elementary, middle, high) in a single language, and then sometimes rotate them when levels change. In any case, an individual subject is almost always taught only in one language during either one year or a whole cycle. Sometimes they decide which system they favor if there is mismatch in the order the things are introduced - very few schools actually produce an education comparable to all three systems, usually it is comparable to one and semi-comparable to the others, but not fully.