For more than seven decades, UNESCO has promoted multilingual education as a fundamental pathway to achieving quality, inclusive learning. Today, international schools are seeing a significant increase in enrolments from local families – a marked departure from their traditional role serving predominantly expatriate students from English-speaking backgrounds. As a result, many schools now report that the majority of their students are multilingual, underscoring the urgent need for international schools to adopt the inclusive and linguistically diverse culture that UNESCO continues to advocate.
In response to this shift, a growing number of schools have implemented a policy determining that ‘Every teacher is a language teacher,’ or a similar statement, to ensure language acquisition is supported and embedded across the curriculum. However, as we uncovered in our recent white paper, such policies do not always translate into best practice for multilingual learner provision. Common challenges include staff training inconsistencies, logistical barriers to collaboration between language specialists and mainstream teachers, and varying levels of buy-in from staff.
Considering these challenges, should every teacher be defined as a language teacher in international schools? Ruth Radwan, Group Head of Multilingualism at International Schools Partnership (ISP), offers an important reframing:
“Every educator in an international school is a teacher of subject-specific academic language and has a responsibility to meet the diverse needs of their multilingual students.”
The question, then, is not whether all educators are responsible for language development, but how they can be equipped to support it effectively. With this in mind, our conversation with Ruth explored how a whole-school approach – exemplified by ISP – can respond to these common challenges and empower all educators to embed language support into everyday classroom practice.
Building teacher capacity through tiered training
The Solution
To bridge these gaps in practice, ISP has designed a bespoke, differentiated professional learning programme for all schools across its network, empowering educators at every level to confidently embed a whole-school approach to multilingualism.
The programme combines online modules with live sessions and is structured across three tiers to meet the diverse needs of staff. As Ruth explains, Tier 1 provides an entry-level foundation for learning assistants and early career teachers, available in 10 languages to ensure accessibility; Tier 2 supports mainstream subject teachers who may be less familiar with the needs of multilingual learners; and Tier 3 is aimed at senior leaders and heads of multilingualism.
This tiered approach enables targeted, tailored staff development. For example, Tier 2 explores multilingual identities and both how and why the main language of education can itself become a barrier to understanding. The programme then focuses on how educators can use students’ entire linguistic repertoires, through pedagogical approaches such as translanguaging, to ensure home languages facilitate greater access to learning.
Integrating language specialists into curriculum planning
The Solution
To overcome this, ISP advocates for schools to timetable Multilingualism Leads into regular departmental meetings throughout the academic year. This ensures language specialists can support the planning of upcoming units, identify likely challenges for multilingual students, and determine the scaffolding needed for student success. Specialists can then develop targeted resources and strategies in advance, working alongside mainstream teachers to embed support across the curriculum.
As Ruth explains, the goal is to “empower mainstream teachers to feel confident in working effectively with multilingual learners,” ensuring they are supported by specialists in both lesson design and resource provision. As a result, collaboration is positioned at the core of ISP’s approach to driving high impact learning in multilingual classrooms.
Driving long-term change in multilingual education
The Solution
Ruth emphasises that meaningful change starts with leadership. At ISP, school leaders are supported in understanding the paradigm shift from the traditional EAL coordinator role, focused on small groups of learners new to English, to a whole-school commitment to multilingualism. A key part of this shift is the establishment of a dedicated Head of Multilingualism – often appointed to the Middle Leadership Team but increasingly seen in the Senior Leadership Team. This role oversees language learning across all areas of the curriculum, including EAL, home languages, and modern foreign languages.
To further this whole-school transformation, ISP has developed a three-pronged approach to changing mindsets and structuring staff support:
- Share evidence-based research: Provide educators with access to condensed, evidence-backed research on language acquisition, ensuring they understand the foundation of the shared vision for multilingualism and are confident in delivering high-impact learning for students. To strengthen this approach, ISP is the first school group to partner with the Multilingualism Research Centre (MLRC), engaging language specialists in ongoing action research to enhance multilingual support across schools.
- Develop policies collaboratively: Develop a vision statement and a language policy that involves all stakeholders. Invite teachers, parents, and students to engage with the policy before it is finalised, giving them the opportunity to unpack its meaning and understand its significance.
- Encourage reflective conversations: After classroom learning visits, facilitate coaching conversations to offer timely support, share practical tips, and identify areas for growth. Rooted in gentle persistence, these supportive protocols help teachers feel confident in making meaningful, sustained changes.
“We position everything we do around student learning. If language is a barrier to learning, we as educators have a responsibility to break that barrier.”
Ruth Radwan
Empowering every teacher to support every student
So, is every teacher a language teacher? To make this statement meaningful, schools must redefine it as a call to action: to empower every teacher to support every student. This means investing in differentiated professional development, embedding language specialists into curriculum design and timetabling, and building long-term engagement through inclusive policies and reflective practice.
To learn more about shifting student demographics and language provision in the world’s international schools, download ISC Research’s free white paper.
