The language of the classroom and the language of the yard

Start with break time, not the language-policy PDF.

What do the children shout when the bell goes? That is the language of the yard. It may be the host country’s. It may be English because three-quarters of the class arrived last August. It may be a mix that leaves your child translating the joke, again, while they eat.

The classroom language is the one on the timetable: the language of maths, of the novel, of the exam. The yard language is the one that decides whether Tuesday feels like a life or like a posting. You need both on the fridge list. How to choose already asked you to write them down. This page is how to test them on a tour, without inventing a number of hours the school did not print.

Why the two languages come apart

An English-medium international school in Vienna, Stockholm or Lisbon is designed so a child can arrive in January and keep learning. The classroom stays in English. The city outside the gate does not.

A national or bilingual house is designed so the child can live here. The classroom may be German, French, Spanish, Swedish. The yard usually agrees.

A European School is designed around a language section. L1 is the dominant language; the Director decides what that is. The yard is the mix of the sections that actually sit on that site. It is not “the English school in the woods.” European Schools versus internationals is that distinction at length.

None of these designs is morally better. They produce different eight-year-olds.

Host-country language: a subject, a stream, or a hope

Ask what the host-country language is in this building. The honest answers are few:

• A timetable subject, grouped by proficiency, from the first year
• A medium of instruction in some subjects (a bilingual stream)
• A hope that the yard and the supermarket will do the work

We do not invent programme hours. If a public page names them, we will say so and name the page. If it does not, you ask, and you write down the answer with the date.

Named, official pictures we already walk through on this site:

Oslo International School treats Norwegian as the host-country language for Years 1–10, at three levels, beginner to native speaker. Students on Norwegian A sit the Norwegian National Tests in Years 6, 8 and 9. That is the school’s own design. Ask how many hours this year group actually gets, and what a January arrival is doing by June.

Munich International School says every student takes German from Early Childhood through Grade 12, grouped by ability. The FAQ and the Junior School handbook treat it as part of the IB story, not a club. Ask the same two questions: hours, and the January child.

The British School of Brussels has run a French–English bilingual stream since 2011, Year 1 to Year 9. History, Geography and Art are taught in French; Maths and Science stay in English. Applicants need age-appropriate development in English and/or French. Everyone is assessed at admissions and reassessed in Year 6. That is preparation for a bilingual IB Diploma later, not a club you join because you live in Tervuren. If your child is on the ordinary English-medium path, French is a subject from Kindergarten. Those are two different childhoods under one roof.

American School of Barcelona prints Catalan and Catalan Language Learning as separate lines, next to Castellano y Sociales. A child with playground Spanish may still start in Catalan Language Learning. Ask which set before you assume the yard will teach the other official language of the city.

CAISL, in Linhó, teaches in English and treats Portuguese as a core subject, native and foreign. The fee page calls the support PAL and EAL and says both sit inside tuition. Ask how native and foreign-language tracks split in Grade 2 versus Grade 8.

AIS Vienna puts German into the Early Childhood story and then asks, in High School, for academic English — with no EAL at that end. The host-country language and the classroom gate are not the same conversation.

If you want a child who can live in the city rather than only commute through it, this is the paragraph to test on a tour. If you will be in Singapore in three years, a heavy host-country stream may be kindness (a language they will keep) or a trap (a language that ate the hours they needed for the travelling exam). Write which life you are actually living.

EAL, and the year it stops

EAL (or ELA, or ELL — the letters move; the job does not) is support in the classroom language, usually English, for a child whose English is still arriving.

Ask four things, in writing:

1. Is it included in tuition, or invoiced? Some fee PDFs fold it in. Some put “Intensive English” on a second line. Campion School in Athens, on its 2026–27 fee schedule, prices Senior Extra English as a yearly extra and, on official policy text the school still hosts, often timetables EAL in place of a second foreign language. That is that PDF and that policy. Another campus will do the opposite.
2. From which grade does it stop being available? This is the cut-off that surprises people. CAISL’s support page is honest that High School tightens: later grades need a trajectory toward fluent academic English, demonstrated on the school’s testing. British International School of Stockholm says EAL is available “as long as necessary” — except that IGCSE and IB applicants need English proficiency, and the school may recommend extra support outside, paid by parents. AIS Vienna’s High School has no EAL. We are repeating named pages, not inventing a Europe-wide year.
3. Is it a pull-out, a set, or a second teacher in the room? Pull-out means they miss something. Ask what.
4. Is the admissions test a placement tool or a gate? Hellerup’s official language document, for example, has PYP 4–5, MYP and DP applicants sitting an English placement or admissions test, and parents may be asked to pay for extra support if English is weaker than the regular pathway can hold.

A kind EAL programme in Grade 3 is not a promise about Grade 11. If the leaving certificate is the IB Diploma, A-Levels, or IGCSE, academic English will be required before the exam year. Ask when that conversation happens, and who is in the room.

Do not hide a language need on the form. Schools that cannot staff it would rather say no than discover it in October.

Bilingual streams are a second school

“Bilingual” on a homepage can mean a weekly hour of the host language, or it can mean half the timetable in another tongue.

Ask:

• Which subjects are taught in which language, in this year?
• Who decides the set — a test, a parent wish, a previous school?
• What happens at the first reassessment (BSB’s Year 6 is a published example)?
• If we leave in two years, what is portable — the language, the exam, or only the confidence?

A French–English lycée section, a German bilingualer Zweig, a Dutch TTO stream, a Swedish international section inside a municipal school: these are national objects with national rules. They are not “IB, but local.” Ask who marks the exam and which university office will recognise which mention.

If two adults in the house disagree — one wants English doors, one wants the child to have friends on the street in July — do not average the disagreement into a weak bilingual that pleases nobody. Name it. Sometimes the answer is an English classroom and a serious host-country set. Sometimes it is the local school and English at home.

Mother tongue, which is not a club either

If the classroom is English and home is Polish, or the section is French and home is Portuguese, ask whether mother-tongue is:

• a timetable subject
• a privately paid extra after 16:00
• a parents’ association class
• a hope

European Schools are the rare system that treats L1 as the centre of the day. SWALS children still get L1 under the official rules if the course exists. An IB campus may offer a school-supported self-taught language in the Diploma years, or nothing until you hire a tutor. Both can work. You should know which one you have bought.

What to listen for on the tour

Skip the question about last year’s average. Ask these, then watch the corridor.

• Where does a January arrival sit at lunch in week one? Not metaphorically. A table, a name, a language they can actually use.
• How many hours of the host-country language, in which sets, in this year group? If they cannot name a figure, ask them to show the timetable. If they name a figure, write the date you heard it. Hours change.
• What does a child who arrived last January sound like now, in the yard? Ask to hear a pupil, not a slogan.
• From which grade does English support stop, and is that a fee line or a pedagogical gate?
• Is mother-tongue a subject, an extra, or a Saturday?
• Which children thrive here linguistically — and who spends their courage by 11 a.m. translating?
• If we stay five years, what language will this child be tired in? Tired is the native one. That is a good sign, if it is the language of the life you are living.

Ten questions for a school tour has the rest of the pocket list. Add these two or three if language is the fridge line that matters.

A kitchen-table test

Imagine a Thursday in February, rain, the child nine or fourteen.

In one picture they come home tired in English, with a story about a science lab, and they still cannot buy a bun in the bakery without you. In the other they come home tired in German or French or Swedish, with a playground joke you do not fully get, and homework you cannot check.

Both pictures can be a good life. The mistake is buying the first while hoping for the second, or the second while needing the first in three years.

Write the picture you are actually choosing. Then choose the school that teaches that Tuesday, not the one whose language-policy page sounded like a United Nations toast.

If two schools both feel possible, pick the one where this child will have a language to be silly in by Advent. The exam can be decided later. The yard cannot.

Friendly orientation, not formal admissions advice. Always confirm dates with the school.