Huili Express | Our Approach to a Successful Bilingual Education
As a leader in the bilingual education industry in China, we are eager to share our teachings and research outcomes with parents and fellow educators. We also hope to build a network of mutual support with fellow educators through our work. With this in mind, we would like to introduce our new column – Huili Express. In this column, we will update you on the latest work of the Huili Institute of Learning (IoL) and our teaching achievements at all Huili bilingual schools. We will be exploring a wide variety of questions in the future. Here is a preview of what is in store:
How to create a cross-cultural team
How to deliver bilingual education scientifically in children's formative years
How to design intermediate and advanced bilingual programmes in a way that pupils can transition smoothly from the former to the latter
What subjects can be taught bilingually? Why?
How to establish a bilingual learning space?
How to evaluate bilingual teaching achievements?
In this first edition, we will share some of the remarkable achievements of our Huili bilingual schools along with an overview of Wellington College China's journey in exploring bilingual education.
The basic principles of a Huili bilingual curriculum
Huili schools adhere to the following basic principles:
1. For our pupils to be patriots who celebrate their Chinese identity with a passion for China, its history, heritage, culture and traditions
2. To achieve academic excellence through using the rigourous Chinese national curriculum crafted curriculum structure and content
3. To provide a well-rounded education approach founded on research-based best practices in holistic and progressive education from around the world
4. To facilitate holistic development through a broad and balanced curriculum experience
5. To cultivate bilingual talent in an international context
We are committed to providing an excellent bilingual education that combines the best of Chinese and English education. A well-implemented bilingual curriculum allows cultural and historical elements from both language cultures to be combined. It integrates ideas, teaching models and assessment methods from both cultures and the benefits to our pupils extend well beyond the classroom.
At Huili, teachers and pupils adopt both ways of communication, thinking and learning both in and out of classes, bearing witness to the results of the Huili experts' hard work as they refined Huili's bilingual curriculum over the last four years.
Below are the three key characteristics of Huili's bilingual curriculum.
Innovation in Pedagogy:
Interdisciplinary thematic learning
At Huili the curriculum is structured around thematic units with learning goals and content that are founded on the Chinese national curriculum standard and linked to the English national curriculum standards, as well as the Huili model to foster more in-depth learning. The carefully crafted thematic units thread together learning across different subjects and allow pupils to apply cross-disciplinary skills. This teaching method facilitates cognitive links between subjects and strengthens both the understanding and application of knowledge. Throughout the learning process students are inspired to develop their capacity to communicate, collaborate and innovate through the creative use of their intellect, knowledge and skills.
Innovation in Bilingual Teaching:
Content and Language Integrated Learning
Huili defines a bilingual as an individual who can make a seamless transition between the two languages of instruction. A bilingual person can read, write, understand, think and speak in the two languages without hindrance at all levels; this is to say that they can make their age-related intercultural and linguistic transitions seamlessly, whether it be for study, business or leisure. Ultimately, bilingual learners think, dream and tell jokes in the two languages.
In Huili, Chinese and English-speaking teachers work together when planning units of study. They are committed to balancing subject and language knowledge to create a genuinely immersive bilingual learning environment for children, to ensure the parallel development of both languages through a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) model, which aims to strengthen students’ language learning while maintaining in alignment with their age-related educational development. CLIL emphasises the functional aspects of language, making language learning more natural and practical. Through planned and purposeful immersion, Huili pupils communicate and apply language structures and skills to the intellectual rigour of subject-based cognition. Interdependence is generated between the two languages of instruction, allowing bilingualism and biliteracy to develop alongside a child’s cognitive development. Through metacognition, pupils are empowered to reflect on the purpose of language as a tool for effective communication.
Robust and Purposeful Assessment
Excellence in education requires accurate and purposeful assessment, not only as a means of recording and reporting pupil attainment but also as a body of formative evidence used to inform teaching and pupils of next steps as learners.
Acquiring accurate and reliable evidence of learning through assessment is complex. Huili schools draw on a range of approaches to ensure that assessment is valid, robust and purposeful; for instance, alongside typical approaches to assessments using written tasks, quizzes and tests, teachers will use the following methods that are known to provide accurate supplementary data:
1. Observation of pupils working independently or in groups to solve a problem or task
2. Structured and planned Socratic discussions between a teacher and a pupil or small groups of pupils
3. Open-ended activities that demand pupils work individually or collaboratively with peers, over a sustained period that requires applying acquired knowledge to solve real-life problems
4. Ongoing assessment of a wide variety of pupil produced extended writing, presentations, oracy and investigations, among others. Each source of evidence is used to establish an overall understanding of what a child knows and can do in each area of the curriculum.
The Huili assessment framework articulates what pupils are expected to know and be able to do at each stage of their learning and for each subject. Importantly, attainment data generated by teacher assessment of learning is used extensively in a formative manner to inform and shape the learning process for each child and the work of teachers through a range of well-established strategies. Not only has this had a significant impact on learning in Huili schools, but also through an IoL research project in partnership with local schools through the Pudong Education Bureau, Shanghai, where there was measurable evidence of enhanced pupil achievement and improved pupil motivation and self-regulation.
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The IoL is committed to delivering impact, opportunities and learning to the education sector in China. It seeks to inspire education across China through high-impact professional learning, research and strategic partnerships. It also seeks to empower educators and leaders to shape education through research-driven professional learning opportunities.
More news of the IoL
September 2020 Wellington-Pudong International Education and Curriculum meeting
July 2020 Specialists from East China Normal University and heads of primary and junior schools from Huangpu District attended a discussion titled ‘What is Great Teaching’
October 2020 Executive Director of the IoL speaks on the topic of ‘Creating a Culture of Excellence’ at the 4th CERB Forum
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