EBI is an independent bilingual school for pre-kindergarten through seventh grades. About one third of EBI's students arrive to the school speaking at least some Spanish. The founders of the school, which opened in September 2006, were parents who specifically wanted a Spanish immersion environment, which at that time was difficult to find past fifth grade in Northern California.
EBI's founders envisioned bilingual education as a key component of an educational philosophy to nurture global citizens, installing the ability to recognize and respect differences, and to consider problems from various perspectives. Not only are children working in English and Spanish by third grade, but at that time the students start to study Mandarin four days a week.
As of the 2010 census, 12.8 percent of the U.S. population - 37 million people over age 5- spoke Spanish at home. Worldwide, Mandarin is the most spoken language, approaching 900 million speakers, with English and Spanish runner ups, according to Ethnologue, an online language research site.
EBI bases its curriculum on the International Baccalaureate (known as IB), a Geneva-based foundation created to develop "the intellectual, personal, and emotional and social skills to live, learn, and work in a rapidly globalizing world." The BI was founded in 1968 and already works with more than 3,000 schools in over 146 countries. IB focuses on inquiry-based learning. There is a popular and well respected IB program at Berkeley High School. Berkeley High School has a four-year IB diploma program, called Berkeley International High school. Many colleges accept IB high school classes interchangeably with AP classes for college credit.
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