Primary Years Programme Making the PYP happen - ITARI

Making the PYP happen
How are language practices changing (see figure 26)
How is language connected
Language is a complex web of connections, transcending the artificial separations of schedules and disciplines.
The language strands are interdependent, with listening, speaking, reading and writing being taught and learned
simultaneously. Language is seen as involving learning language itself, learning about language and learning
through language, and is the major connecting element across the curriculum, with students focusing not only on
language for its own sake, but also on the languages of science, history, mathematics and other disciplines.
The PYP language classroom extends beyond the classroom walls, with close connections to the central
school library/media centre for research, quiet reading and story sessions, and to other classrooms for paired
reading activities, shared bookmaking and interviews. The teacher plans in collaboration with other
classroom teachers and specialists, ESL and foreign language teachers playing a particularly important role in
reinforcing, supporting and extending the classroom work.
Language is also a major connection between home and school and, in the PYP classroom, cooperative
activities are common, to optimize development of all the students’ languages. Mother tongue development
is actively encouraged and supported: bilingual dictionaries are available in the classroom, letters to parents
are often translated before being sent home, students are encouraged to use books in their own language for
project work and, often, mother tongue classes are part of the programme.
There are connections with the wider community, the host country’s language and literature deserving and
receiving special status, helping students to adjust to and appreciate the culture of the host country.
The PYP language classroom is also connected to the broader world through technology: students aim for literacy
in its broadest sense, researching and communicating not only through printed media but also through global
electronic networks, exchanging poetry with a live poets group; collecting first-hand information for a unit on
water from peers in Alaska, The Netherlands and Western Australia; connecting directly with NASA to access a
vast range of multimedia resources.
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