HI
I am the Elementary Principal at Sinarmas World Academy and the information that you have listed is not the current practice of our school with regard admissions, student placement or the learning of English and or other languages. I have copied in below a section from our English as an Additional Language (EAL) Handbook for parents - I hope this is helpful to you. Sinarmas World Academy is an IB World School offering all 3 IB Programmes with expatriate homeroom teachers in every class and in specialist positions in Music, PE, Math, Sciences, Art. Let me know if you would like to come check us out some time - I would be happy to speak with you and show you around - Cheers
Bruce Ashton
[email protected]
Elementary School Principal
SWA - EAL Mainstream Program Overview
The SWA programme delivers explicit teaching that informs and supports learning across all areas of the school curriculum, promotes greater understanding of the language-related needs of our ELLs and ways of meeting those needs, and offers increased awareness of materials and teaching approaches for all teachers which take into account the diverse cultural backgrounds and experiences of all our students.
In the Elementary School, the EAL Mainstream programme aims to provide every ELL with the three following outcomes:
Communicative Competence—Use language appropriately for a variety of communicative purposes in different contexts.
Linguistic Competence—Demonstrate control over the age-appropriate linguistic features and structures at the word, sentence and text levels.
Strategic Competence—Use a variety of age appropriate learning strategies to support and enhance communication and language development
EAL Mainstream teachers work alongside classroom teachers to support the ELLs in the most language rich areas of the curriculum such as, but not exclusively, the PYP Units of Inquiry (UOIs) and Language Arts. Delivery is student focused, flexible and multi faceted, depending on the needs of the students at their various stages of language development.
The ELLs’ are immersed within the general curriculum and receive instructional services through support in a collaborative classroom where the mainstream teachers EAL teachers share the responsibility of ensuring all ELLs’ reach full educational parity with their native English-speaking peers in a context-rich environment that promotes high expectations for academic achievement.
The mainstream classes provide opportunities for students to learn and use relevant language in authentic contexts. The EAL teachers work alongside the mainstream teachers to make sure that non-native speaking students can understand the English of the classroom and the content of the curriculum, as well as participate in the classroom activities. This enables EAL students greater opportunities to successfully meet the outcomes of the IB PYP.
Within the classroom EAL specialists use a wide range of teaching methods that encourage ELLs to interact actively with their EAL and more linguistically able peers. This makes their learning both meaningful and authentic across the whole range of language skills – speaking, listening reading and writing. Instruction and assessment is based on a variety of specific language functions, text types, content specific and content compatible vocabulary, language features, language learning strategies and cultural understandings integrated and assessed in the IB PYP.
Reading for information and for relaxing plays a very important role in our curriculum and our students are all encouraged to read widely across a range of genres and topics because this will enhance a student’s acquisition of vocabulary and understanding of differing test types and grammar.
Because we work within the mainstream every student’s progress in their academic content and language development is assessed through formative (continual) assessment such as the UOI assessments, Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA), Writing, Reading Speaking and Listening continuums and through summative testing using the Maculaitis MAC II English test (See Assessment section below for more details).
EAL Admission Identification and Placement
The procedure begins with the completion of the Home Language Survey (HLS) within the admissions documentation.
Upon admission to SWA, the school Admissions Department completes a Home Language section within the admissions application (HLS) whenever the parent(s) indicates that an applying student’s mother tongue is a language other than English. The Principal relevant to the admitting student’s grade admission later reviews the educational records of all potential ELL’s identified.
If the Principal feels that the student's academic progress may be significantly influenced by their lack of English they determine the child’s requirement to take a MACII screening test administered by an EAL faculty member. A report with recommendations is then written and delivered to the appropriate Head of School. Using data from this screening testing and taking into account other pertinent information, the Principal determines whether admission to the school is granted. If admission is successful, the grade the student will be placed according to the level of ability determined during the screening. The EAL and homeroom teachers of the class and grade appointed by the head of School are informed accordingly and, in conjunction with the relevant class teacher, provide an appropriate support programme.
If the testee scores at the Beginner or Low Intermediate levels for listening and speaking then the student may be given the British Picture Vocabulary Scale (BPVS) test to confirm the MAC II test results and provide a diagnostic score for receptive language. This score helps us to validate the level of support needed for the students to progress in their English language learning. Additional testing beyond this may be administered at the discretion of the EAL and Learning Support if it is required.