“Though Yew Chung is a multilingual environment, teachers respect that children have a home language that they use to speak with their families. Using this language in school as needed or as desired allows the child to be academically and socially active throughout the school day. It also provides security, as a child is learning an additional language, that he or she may still be understood.”
Dr Stephanie Sanders-Smith,
Yew Chung – Bernard Spodek Scholar in Early Childhood Education;
College of Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The Yew Chung ECE Approach values state that children are respected and trusted, and provided with quality relationships (with their teachers and their peers) as well as ownership of their learning as key to their optimal growth and development; and as such, connection and a sense of belonging is at the centre of the learning goals for each child. To provide connection and a sense of belonging (emotional and personal well-being of a child) home language is used to support children’s expressions and interactions.
Home language allows children to confidently and competently express their ideas, feelings, needs and wants. Once children feel connected and a sense of belonging to their classroom family, they will be motivated to gain the necessary language and communicative skills to form relationships with various teachers and peers who speak different languages to themselves.
At YCIS, our bilingually focused, research-based, and holistic approach to education helps our students build a strong foundation and range of skills from an early age.
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