ISJ May 2020: Immersion in Collaboration: Supporting Multilingualism and Academic Success

A Changing Linguistic Landscape: The face of international education has changed in the past thirty years. In 1989, the global average for international school enrolment was 80% foreign students and 20% host country nationals. In 2019, the opposite was true; with less than a quarter of the international school population studying outside their home country, and with more than three quarters comprised of host country nationals (ISC Research, 2019). Historically, international schools grew out of colonial and post-colonial globalization of the late 19th and 20th centuries. A result of increasing global mobility, expatriate international schools were established to educate students while parents were employed by multinational companies or diplomatic missions.