What We Do
Does your school need access to experienced teachers to support self-taught mother-tongue students?
A challenge for many international schools is that they have students who require, or would benefit from, mother-tongue instruction, but they do not have locally-available qualified teachers; or the resources or contractual possibilities (such as work permit eligibility for temporary, part-time workers) to recruit and employ suitable teachers from abroad.
Experienced teachers help to contribute to the success of exam candidates.
The International Language and Literature Teachers’ Cooperative helps schools improve the educational experience of their students by enabling them to offer a broader base of mother-tongue options for families who seek this as part of their international education experience. It can also provide that important reassurance of quality-control for schools that must rely on this ‘out-sourced’ service.
How It Works
The International Language and Literature Teachers’ Cooperative (ILLTC) is an independent network of experienced educators managed by Langford International Education Consultancy Ltd. The ILLTC was created to be a resource for schools offering school-supported self-taught mother tongue programmes. We also offer mother tongue maintenance and development programmes for younger students (aged 10-15) who may return to their home countries to complete their secondary education, or who aspire to do SSST Lit A when they enter the IB Diploma programme. In exceptional circumstances, we also work with schools to offer a bespoke mother tongue or foreign language programme for US high school diploma candidates who wish to stay engaged with their home language for high school credit.
Our teachers share their expertise by engaging for one hour per week and meeting students remotely via a videocall arranged at a mutually convenient time each teaching week of the school year. (More frequent engagement may be recommended if a formal assessment suggests this is required.)
Since we started 10 years ago we have supported over fifty languages through the ILLTC. If a language is not normally examined by the IBO, the school can inquire whether the IBO will consider allowing a special request. Over the years we have also assisted IB schools arranging special requests for a wide variety of languages. (We are happy to try to help schools find teachers for minority languages not ordinarily examined by the IBO.)
Based in London, a cosmopolitan international capital city with a concentration of international schools, the ILLTC is a group of teachers who bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise, including previous IB Language A teaching experience**, that can be shared with schools worldwide seeking to expand their mother tongue provision to better serve a wider range of mother-tongue language speakers.
** ILLTC has no official affiliation with the IBO.
Additional Services
Language Assessments
Occasionally IB candidates require an assessment for the school to better evaluate whether a student has the necessary skills to pursue SSST Literature (SL) in the mother tongue. Our ILLTC consultants are happy to provide a written formal assessment which includes a reading and writing assignment that schools may use to determine the suitability of a student’s language choices. There is a small fee for this.
Special Request Language A (SL)
In a few cases (Azeri, Khmer and Kazakh) ILLTC consultants have helped schools submit special requests to the IBO for these languages that are not amongst the 50+ examined IB Language A programmes available. This included having our consultants work with the schools to devise lists of suitable texts that meet the SSST Language A criteria. The decision to allow an ‘unexamined’ language to be offered as an SSST option is dependent on the IBO and may depend on the level of interest globally in that language.
Language B (HL&SL)
In very exceptional cases (and less so in the past year) where a student requires IB Language B, the school has secured IB approval to offer Language B with an external teacher. This has occurred in the case of students transferring to IB2 who have already started a Language B in another school, and who need to continue in that language. It has also occurred when it has become evident that a student lacks the level of written or reading comprehension proficiency skills required to fully access and succeed in their mother tongue Language A programmes. This can occur when a family moves internationally and formal instruction of the mother tongue is not sustained and lapses over the years. In these cases, in part supported by information provided by our consultants in their formal assessments of the students, schools have sought and been granted exceptional permission to offer the language with an external (experienced IB) teacher offering Language B (HL). In some instances, these students were also doing English Language A and were hoping to earn bilingual diplomas by taking a second Language A in their mother tongue. We have also supported Language B Ab Initio. This is entirely the discretion of the IBO and the application for Language B in recent years the IBO has been less inclined to support these requests.
Supervision for Extended Essays
Some schools have used our consultants to work under the schools’ direction to support Extended Essays in the target language. This requires extra hours (according to EE guidelines) and incurs an additional fee.
Middle Years Mother Tongue Support
ILLTC also provides mother tongue language support for younger students (ages 11-15) who wish to maintain the mother tongue with a view to preparing for a return to the home country’s education system, or for starting SSST Literature A at IBDP level. This course is not designed to prepare for specific externally-assessed exams but is merely to sustain the mother tongue. We have also done this when students have previously studied a second language (not the mother tongue) to a high standard in another school, and wish to maintain and develop their fluency in that second language (examples include Mandarin and German).
Temporary Substitute/Supply Cover Language A & B
In two cases (Switzerland and India), the IB has granted permission for an IB World School to engage ILLTC consultants to support (remotely) the students whose school-based part- or full-time Language A & B teachers have gone on medical or emergency leave, and where no other local specialist was available on a short-term, temporary basis.
US High School Credit and other National Language Exams
We have in some cases provided mother tongue courses for students in IB schools who are not taking the IB Diploma but who seek to graduate from that school with a US-style high school diploma. We provide a bespoke blended programme (teacher-led combined with supervised independent study at school) that is designed around the student’s current level of proficiency and aims to improve proficiency during the year using a variety of resources and methods. Examples of this include Spanish, German, Turkish. In special cases we have also helped students to prepare for national language assessments which students require to enter university in the home country (examples include Polish and Greek).
Paper Marking for SSST Literature A
Some schools have engaged ILLTC consultants to mark the papers of all of their first year SSST Literature students participating in mock IB assessments.
The ILLTC is proud of these initiatives and we are happy to work with schools to find suitable solutions for the language needs of their students.
Useful Information
Below you can find more useful information, from our commitments, our fees and our privacy policy statements.