Chandler Oaks Elementary School – an IB World School

Language Policy

Our Mission:

Together, the Chandler Oaks Elementary community of educators, students and families create an enriched learning environment where all feel safe, valued, and prepared to reach their full potential. Students are immersed in a detailed curriculum structured by Round Rock ISD and a technologically-infused environment within the IB Framework. Families are our partners in education; as one, we are learners who appreciate individuality and the world around us.

PHILOSOPHY

At Chandler Oaks Elementary, we believe language is a vital tool for learning, communicating and being an active member of a global society.  As communication in the world changes, we have the responsibility for supporting our students to be multilingual learners.  Language opens the mind and presents opportunities that will cultivate internationally minded citizens.

We believe language acquisition is best supported by a language rich environment including books, periodicals, environmental print, online resources, and teacher and student writing. All instructional staff members are language teachers with responsibilities in facilitating communication. Learning a language is part of forming one’s own identity, exploring thoughts and having an awareness of the thoughts and identities of others. It is, therefore, key to our personal, cognitive and cultural development.

Language is used to communicate our needs, feelings, ideas and experiences as well as understanding others.  We do this by appreciating, exploring, and reflecting on our ability to express ourselves using a variety of forms including literacy, math, science & technology, the humanities, visual and performing arts. Language, in all its forms and in all systems, is the fundamental way we learn about ourselves, about others and the world around us.

PRACTICES

We believe oral, written, and visual language permeates the whole curriculum.  Language is the medium through which the entire curriculum is taught and learned.  It facilitates communication and incorporates the skills of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and media literacy. There is a reciprocal relationship between using inquiry to facilitate language and using language to facilitate inquiry. All students are provided a safe, nurturing, language-rich environment that supports learning as well as social, emotional development and well-being. Our school community benefits from access to different cultures, perspectives and languages, which increase cultural awareness and international-mindedness.  We value and encourage students to respect the language, literature, and culture of their home country.  We strive to create a caring language community in which all students feel accepted and supported, thereby feeling confident to be risk-takers.

To add complexity to the student experience, all teachers are viewed and expected to maintain certain literacy standards with their course work.  All staff members hold students accountable to proper grammar and structure, both written and verbal in everyday interactions. Teachers provide ample opportunities for students to learn unique ways to communicate with each other; and tools and strategies evaluate student language acquisition. Students’ journal entries are tools to evaluate literacy.

The criterion used to assess student’s language development is consistent across subject areas to reinforce the idea that all subjects are connected and skills cross boundaries.

In order to achieve our aims, teachers will:

• Use a workshop approach to Reading & Writing
• Model and teach the correct use of language
• Encourage inquiry through authentic whole-class conversations, problem-solving, hands-on science activities, writing assignments, reading responses, and class meetings
• Teach language in context and address the following modalities: listening, speaking, reading, writing, presenting, and viewing according to the Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills and the IB Approaches to Learning, especially communication skills
• Provide a variety of learning experiences to ensure balance and progression in the acquisition of language
• Differentiate activities to meet children’s language needs
• Expose children to new and stimulating vocabulary linked to PYP Units of Inquiry and encourage them to use this to develop listening, speaking, reading, writing, presenting, and viewing skills.
• Create an atmosphere of acceptance and respect of cultural differences.
• Incorporate and apply literacy throughout the day, across disciplines, through meaningful tasks in authentic contexts.
• Recognize and respect the different ways in which students express themselves including mother tongue development. 

SECOND LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION

All students at Chandler Oaks Elementary receive Spanish instruction once a week. Students in Kindergarten receive a thirty-five minute lesson, while students in grades one through five participate in a forty-five minute lesson. Teachers remain in the Spanish classroom every other week to learn alongside the students. This enables the teachers to reinforce during the school day the objectives that are being taught.

During Spanish instruction, students learn to speak the language, but they also learn about language (how it works, similarities and differences between languages, etc.) and they learn through language as they explore the cultures of the Spanish-speaking world. With all grade levels, the TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling) methodology is used; this approach emphasizes learning language through meaningful and personalized context. It moves students beyond the traditional focus on memorization of thematic lists of words to using language in real-world situations to communicate information, feelings, thoughts and ideas.

The Spanish Curriculum has been written by the RRISD IB elementary Spanish teachers; the following summarizes second language acquisition at Chandler Oaks Elementary:

• Kindergarten has an introductory unit that includes colors, numbers, family members, etc., but also has engaging songs and stories that enable them to hear the language and it’s syntax.  It also is meant to give them a global perspective with their central idea: Language connects us with others.

• First through fifth grades have year long units that meld information about the geography and culture of a Spanish-speaking area of the world with the actual language acquisition. An example would be that third grade learns all of the vocabulary and syntax necessary to tell about the migration of the monarch butterfly from Canada to Mexico.

• First grade is learning Spanish while exploring the different cultures found in South America. The central idea for the year is: Language is a way to share knowledge.
• Second grade learns Spanish while exploring the culture of Spain. Their central idea for the year is: Language is a way to get knowledge.
• Third grade is learning Spanish while exploring the culture of Mexico. The central idea is: Languages, like cultures have similarities and differences.
• Fourth grade learns Spanish while learning about the history, geography and culture of Central America. The central idea is: Language evolves over time.
• Fifth grade will learn Spanish while learning about the culture of the three Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries: Dominican Republic, Cuba and Puerto Rico.

MOTHER TONGUE SUPPORT

The faculty and staff are all accountable for communicating our support of mother tongue languages. We feel that students and parents who speak another language bring an added perspective to learning. We value their views and encourage them to share.  We utilize their knowledge as resources and guest speakers. Our library has books in the home languages of all our students and continues to look for more resources to support both second language acquisition and other mother tongue languages. As the language program develops, we continue to seek more opportunities to highlight and support other mother tongue languages.

ASSESSMENT

All students are assessed in their development of oral language, written language, and visual language including viewing and presenting; assessments used for the monitoring of language development include AIMSweb, Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System (BAS) and the Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS). Students in Grades 3-5 will also be assessed with The State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) in Math and Reading. Additionally Grade 4 students are required to take the STAAR Writing Assessment; Grade 5 students are required to take the STAAR Science Assessment. (See Chandler Oaks Assessment Policy for more detail.)

SUPPORT FOR LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Chandler Oaks has several support services available, as needed, to assist students in their language development.  These include:

• Limited English Proficient students are placed in classrooms with teachers who are ESOL certified.
• Speech, Dyslexia and other Special Education services
• Talented and Gifted
• Response to Intervention (RtI) / Student Success Team (SST)
• The library staff supports classroom learning with specific lessons, author visits, literacy promotion, book fair, book studies and reading programs.
• Technology
• Intervention groups
• Counselor—social language development, study skills, etc.
• Literacy Library

PLAN FOR IMPLEMENTATION AND REVIEW

• The Language /Assessment Policy Committee and Pedagogical Leadership Team accept the responsibility for ensuring the language policy is put into practice.
• Teachers and coordinator will communicate language policy to parents, and Instructional Technology Coordinator will ensure electronic posting on school website.
• Principal and Assistant Principal will regularly evaluate implementation of language policy as evidenced by classroom observations and school presentations.  
• The newly revised Chandler Oaks Language Policy will go into effect August 1, 2016 and will be reviewed every 3 years or earlier as needed by the Language /Assessment Policy Committee and Pedagogical Leadership Team.

RESOURCES

• Guidelines for developing a school language policy, IBO
• Making the PYP Happen, A curriculum framework for international education
• Language Scope and Sequence, IBO
• Structure of Reading/Writing Workshop, revised by COES Leadership Team, 2015
• RRISD Elementary Language Arts Beliefs and Instructional Practices for Teaching Literacy K-5
• Sample Language Policies from the following schools:

Franklin C. Martin K-8 Center; Nagoya International School; Handly School; Beacon Hill School; Alsup Elementary; Spicewood Elementary; James B Sanderlin Elementary

Collaboratively developed by the Chandler Oaks Language /Assessment Policy Committee Members:

Janet Stading, Coordinator

Dayna Collings, Librarian

Carol Imperial, Spanish Teacher

Karen Swint, Talented & Gifted (TAG)

Tammi Carter, Interventionist

Laurie Mutscher, Counselor

Lianna Sayegh, First Grade

Tracy Walpole, Second Grade

Amy Moore, Third Grade

Olivia Ortega, Fourth Grade

Kelley Hirt, Principal

Dana Green, Assistant Principal