Schools join the Language Friendly School Network to support students’ identities
Three pillars
The Language Friendly School is built around three pillars:
- Celebrating the languages, knowledge and histories that students and their families bring to the school.
- A plan adapted to each school’s needs. The network provides ideas and support, but the schools choose their own activities and strategies: from Multilingual Word Walls to Identity Texts and Language Ambassadors.
- A whole-school approach: everybody contributes to creating a language-friendly learning environment. This complies with the 2019 European Council Recommendation for comprehensive language learning and teaching approaches, which use the linguistic diversity of learners “as a learning resource, including by involving parents, other carers and the wider local community”.
International scope
There are currently 15 Language Friendly Schools in Canada, the Netherlands, Saba (Dutch Caribbean) and Spain, with over 30 schools from various countries that have expressed interest.
Their reasons for joining vary. Some are already language-friendly and want to demonstrate their commitment to linguistic and cultural inclusion. For others, it is a way to enhance the cohesion within the school community. And for most, it is about boosting students’ social skills, increasing their well-being and supporting their cognitive development.
See the Optimist International School as an example:
Dr Ellen-Rose Kambel is director of the Rutu Foundation for Intercultural Multilingual Education, and Dr Emmanuelle Le Pichon is assistant professor at the University of Toronto. They are co-founders of the Language Friendly School.