The Beijing City International School (BCIS) mission is to challenge and empower students to be compassionate and inspired people, who act for the good of all and for the sustainable development of the world. The school demographic represents a diverse community with teachers and students from over 30 nationalities and we are proud that many of our families are Chinese. The school has over 1,275 students from Toddler to Grade 12. We offer both IB Continuum and the Ideate diploma program. The staff-student ratio is 1:7, and the school has a large student support team comprised of counselors, learning support, and English as an additional language (EAL) teachers.
The elementary school division, grades 1 to 5, is unique in that it has a large number of teaching assistants, including 13 homeroom teaching assistants for grades 1-5, as well as 11 EAL teachers for the 21 homeroom classes. This means students can receive 1-1 and small group support as needed in their language learning journey. The EAL team uses a range of tools and strategies to maintain current and relevant pedagogical practices that best serve the variety of student language needs. The EAL team collaborates with homeroom teachers to plan for together and distinguish between stand-alone language learning and co-teaching in the homeroom and with learning support teachers to ensure consistency in learning.
The EAL program in the secondary school consists of stand-alone EAL support classes as well as tiered language acquisition classes within the Middle Years Programme (MYP) program. Students who require additional EAL support receive pull-out as well as push-in services. The student support team collaborates with teachers and administration to consistently identify the level of language support services that students need and to provide those services in a timely and developmentally appropriate way. The student support team has four EAL teachers and eight teaching assistants who provide instructional support services.
BCIS has had a long-standing membership with WIDA and therefore would like to continue our learning and growth through the MLRC. We are looking forward to learning how we can work with the MLRC to improve our practices and support our multilingual students.
