Tandem Blog

  • The Hidden Benefits of Bilingualism in STEM Education

    When thinking about the advantages of being bilingual, enhanced performance in math and science does not often come to mind. Typically, people see the advantages of bilingualism in terms of communication skills, better opportunities in our global community, and the ability to learn other languages more easily. However, the benefits of bilingualism extend far beyond these areas, influencing skills that are crucial in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education.

  • multilingual primary school - a great approach to learning!

    As the students at Tandem IMS' Primary School shuffle in from their break, there is a buzz of energy that moves with them. They are still chatting about their lives, what has happened during their outdoor break time and what their plans are for the weekend. Listening closer to their words, they are flipping seamlessly between different languages as they speak to different friends or as various friends join in the conversation. Once they enter the classroom, the buzz dies down as they then get ready for the next lesson.

  • The importance of an Early Years and Pre-School Curriculum

    Our curriculum for Early Years and Pre-School is a strong partnership between two important ideals within a child’s development: Social and emotional growth, a strong component of the Swiss «Krippenmodell», is combined with the need for learning through discovery and exploration. These areas of development are not mutually exclusive, but coexist and flow naturally throughout our daily routines with our children. Much like the simultaneous presence of the two languages (German and English), we believe the presence of these two ideals enriches a child’s early years.

  • Taking the best from both worlds – Tandem IMS Kindergarten

    Are you aware of the difference in the curriculum between a Swiss and English Kindergarten? When one thinks of the word «Kindergarten», different images come to mind for people in different parts of the world. For those coming from a Swiss background, Kindergarten is a very social time. Teachers create experiences over the course of two years to develop and strengthen each child’s personal, social, and emotional development. They work hard to ensure that each child in their care is confident and secure in themselves and their abilities both socially and physically. By the end of Kindergarten, the children are aware of the social dynamics within their peer group and their place within it.

  • No need to worry when multilingual children are mixing languages

    First things first: every child is unique and language acquisition proceeds at varying speeds and in different ways for each child - regardless of whether the child acquires one or more languages at the same time. However, regarding multilingual education, there is a persistent prejudice that the brain (and thus the child) would be overburdened with more than one language. Those who defend this theory see proof for it in situations where children seem to switch back and forth between languages randomly. Actually, this phenomenon is quite harmless, since it also happens in monolingual language acquisition, for example between dialect and standard language - only there, it is not noticed. In order to understand how these blends occur during speaking and how to actively support bilingual or multilingual acquisition (we basically refer to two and more languages at Tandem IMS), we take a look at the language centre of the brain and focus on the linguistic characteristics of multilingual children.

  • Learning a language is a real treasure

    Our French teacher Amaia Areitio writes about her experiences in language teaching - from the children's first contact with a new foreign language to the first language exam DELF Prim. She explains what such an early exam experience means for the children's personality development, for their school career and above all for their motivation. Would you prefer to read the blog in the original language - French? Then please continue reading here.

  • The Advantages of Multilingualism from an Early Age

    Over the last 15 years, visiting parents have often queried whether their children should be learning a second or third language from an early age and if it is beneficial to their development into adulthood. Such questions are of course still pertinent as our international society has diversified. Multi-cultured and multi-linguistic couples, expatriate work situations and patch-work families have led to an increase of children becoming multilingual.