Bilingualism
at SISD
At SISD, our innovative multilingual approach fosters bilingualism, biliteracy, enhanced awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity, and high levels of academic achievement through instruction in two languages.
Our identity as a Swiss bilingual school forms the central pillar of our school’s approach, and bilingualism is in the DNA of the school. We define bilingualism as the ability to express oneself in French, German or in English, orally or in writing, with native ease and compelling effectiveness.
The school achieves this by providing students with rigorous and innovating language teaching, and a unique co-teaching model in Early Years and Primary, as well as with ongoing cultural immersion opportunities. Our Secondary bilingual programmes offer students the opportunity to study an option of subjects in the different languages, and attain a bilingual IB MYP and IB DP qualification.
Our teachers are native French, German, Arabic or English speakers, and a significant part of the student body have either French, German or English as their mother tongue.
Our bilingual education – beliefs:
- Language learning is a long journey that is different for each individual student
- The best language learning takes place when students are happy and feel safe to take language risks
- Each student needs to be nurtured on their language journey both in and out of the classroom
- Language learning should be adapted to the needs of each student and value the language and cultural background of all our learners
- Children thrive when they can communicate in the language of their home, their school and their environment
' To have another language is to possess a second soul.'
Benefits of Bilingualism
- Enhanced cultural awareness
- Better academic focus and performance
- Stronger communication skills
- Increased creativity
- Heightened cognitive ability
- Greater job opportunities
‘Bilingualism is the ability to understand and use two (or more) languages in certain contexts and for certain purposes.’
