Posted on 06/12/2005 9:44:42 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Nine months ago, Gabriel Mayhew, 6, spoke no Spanish.
Now he knows the Spanish alphabet and can speak full sentences in his second language.
Rosa Ruiz Perez, 6, spoke only Spanish last August, which worried her immigrant parents as they prepared her for school in a new country. Now Rosa says she loves school and loves to learn.
The two students met during the inaugural year of Madison's Nuestro Mundo Community School, a Spanish immersion program that hopes to crack the statewide problem of Hispanic students scoring, as a group, far below their white peers on state tests.
The dual-immersion approach, still rare in Wisconsin but more common in other states, embraces both English and Spanish, with the goal of equal fluency by fifth grade. To succeed, it counts on the buy- in of English speakers.
Housed in Allis Elementary on the East Side, Nuestro Mundo is a public charter school - a parent-initiated specialty program that gets tax dollars but is freed from some constraints of traditional schools.
Viewed skeptically at first by district administrators, the school was pushed through with support from the School Board and is being closely watched for its potential to alter the district's teaching methods.
Parents at the school acknowledge bumps this first year, but many say they're impressed with their children's progress.
"I think the school year is ending on a very satisfying note," said parent Sarah Jossart. "(The school) took some time to evolve since we started from scratch, but I think we all feel pretty good now and are excited about next year."
Most are returning Of the 51 students who started the year, 44 are planning to return as first-graders. School officials and others say the retention rate suggests parent satisfaction and a promising future.
"There are no red flags there," said Gary Hargett, a Portland, Ore., based consultant who advises states on educating limited-English students.
Nuestro Mundo's own research found that some dual- immersion programs lose up to half their students from year to year, said Jane Belmore, assistant superintendent for Madison elementary schools. "That was one of our concerns," she said. Nuestro Mundo's retention rate "absolutely" is impressive, she said.
Retention is considered critical to the school's success because the true value of the program doesn't kick in until fifth grade, when research shows children in language immersion schools really take off and surpass other students academically. Parents are warned there could be a learning lag early on.
Of the 51 students who began last fall, two left the first week because of personal transportation issues. Five others completed the year but won't be back. Of those, two families are moving out of state and a third is moving too far from the school to commute. The final two families are not returning due to disappointment.
The school doesn't yet have a firm grip on "developmentally appropriate" activities, said Karen Craig, whose son, Philip, attended the school.
Craig said she felt the school focused too much on making students sit still, on disciplining them, on assigning homework and on teaching language skills through drills. She would prefer "a more positive learning experience" with more unstructured play and hands-on activities, she said.
But Craig said her son liked his teacher and that the staff did a wonderful job of instilling positive attitudes about Mexico and Spanish. She thinks the school will improve and hasn't ruled out coming back one day.
Brook and Anne Johnson have many of the same concerns as Craig.
"We liked the Spanish part. It was incredible. Our son learned tons and tons of Spanish," said Brook Johnson. "The part we didn't like was that they seemed to pressure the children too much to learn to read and to do things that maybe our son wasn't ready to do."
The constant homework - though not difficult or lengthy - stressed out their son, and there wasn't enough free time, Johnson said.
Teacher Ana Salcido defended the use of homework. Her previous teaching experience was primarily with low- income children whose parents had little advanced education, she said. She has found that homework is especially critical for this population because it reinforces the work done in the classroom and teaches responsibility.
Principal Gary Diaz Zehrbach said it is hard to please all parents but that he's confident the school's approach is working for most students.
An 'awesome' year In kindergarten at Nuestro Mundo, math, science and social studies are taught 90 percent of the time in Spanish. This proportion stays the same in first grade, then gradually changes until, by fifth grade, the split is 50-50.
In one of the more significant changes to occur at Nuestro Mundo, the school switched its approach to teaching language arts halfway through the school year. Initially, students got 90 minutes of daily literacy instruction in their native language. But after the winter break, even language arts was taught solely in Spanish to all students.
The change was made because research shows that intense use of Spanish in early grades produces the best Spanish-related outcomes in the end, at no cost to English language development or to academic achievement, Zehrbach said.
English-speaking students are able to adapt to this lopsided approach because of the dominance of their native language in the larger society, he said. Also, switching back and forth between languages can confuse students and slow their progress, he said.
Miriam Mueller-Owens said her daughter, Sierra, 6, really progressed rapidly in Spanish after the change was made. "She's come a lot farther than I expected her to," she said.
Kelly Mayhew, Gabriel's mother, said her son's literacy in both Spanish and English blossomed.
"For us, the school year was just awesome," she said.
Teachers don't translate the curriculum into English but instead use visual aids, repetition, routine and themes to reach students. The program also counts on students teaching each other, an approach called "modeling." That's why a 50-50 split between native English speakers and native Spanish speakers is preferred.
This year, the balance was off, with only 25 percent of students native Spanish speakers. Next year's kindergarten class is expected to be closer to a 50-50 split. Zehrbach said he couldn't point to any particular thing to explain the improvement.
Students were tested on their English and Spanish skills the last two weeks of school. Those test results were not available at press time.
Looking ahead The school expands to first grade this fall and will add a grade level each year through fifth, until the school has about 250 students.
The incoming class of kindergartners will have about 50 students, and there's a waiting list of 32 more. All three original teachers will be back, as well as three new teachers.
"I'm a big advocate of being bilingual," Salcido said. "These students are going to grow up and be comfortable around other languages and people from other cultures. That's really a great gift to give to kids."
Parent Madu Enwemnwa said his native English- speaking son, Isioma, 5, recently attended a party at the home of a Hispanic family and was praised by the hosts for his Spanish.
"He was able to keep up the conversation," his father said. "It just blew me away."
"the staff did a wonderful job of instilling positive attitudes about Mexico and Spanish."
I wonder what attitudes they instilled about the USA?
How does immersion in Spanish (for the English-speaking students) help the state test scores for Hispanics?
And I confess to not having read the article. ;^)
I like Spanish. I like the fact that this school assigns lots of homework and makes the kids sit still in class. Sounds more like school when I was a kid. I wish we had been instructed in a second language from first grade- that would've been pretty cool.
My girlfriend is Swiss, she grew up with three mother tongues and is fluent in French and English as well- so five languages all together. I didn't begin learning a second language until I was 24. Working on my third now, Spanish, but I will probably have to move to Spain for a few years to reach the fluency level I desire. Would've been nice to get an earlier start with languages.
Hmmm. I took this to mean that math and so forth was being taught in Spanish. I could see how a Spanish speaker's math skills would improve quicker if he learned it in his native tongue. That's what I got out of it anyway.
---Working on my third now, Spanish, but I will probably have to move to Spain for a few years to reach the fluency level I desire. ---
Just move to California. No need to go to Spain.
I would need to move to the States in order to move to Cali. Spain is much closer to where I live now.
All of this sounds great to me.
I think we need to make the english requirement of the citizenship exam and REAL test with no public disclosure of the test questions. (lawyers have them as part of FOIA and coach the client to memorize the answers)
Perhaps we should have each state adopt an english only language amendment.
I believe ALL voting ballots MUST be in english only.
English is the language that unifies the nation. These schools only seek to foster division.
Positive PC goofiness. Positive news about Spanish and Mexico crammed down the throats of impressionable kids, when what they should learn is English, which study after study has shown is the ticket out of poverty. Oh, well, Islamofascist sleep cells will probably blow up the west coast before it becomes completely integrated with Mexico. (The ACLU should be helping those poor Lodi Muslims, who've clearly been racially profiled and persecuted.)
Craig said she felt the school focused too much on making students sit still, on disciplining them, on assigning homework and on teaching language skills through drills...
Actually, that sounds like a good thing.
That's great if it leads to employment opportunities.
Actually, it's coming to my house.
I am fiercely committed to making sure our baby learns both languages as she masters the spoken word. There are too many fine people that speak Spanish, and too many people who have contributed nothing to the success of America that speak English, for me to ignore either in my daughter's education.
Nuestro Mundo is translated as "our world". Their world, indeed.
They plan to dump tests altogether, no doubt. It's more of that positive outcome plan. If kids feel good about themselves, it matters little if they learn to read or write. Self esteem is all that matters, not intellectual achievement. So if Hispanic children fail to achieve in school, it can't be cultural (or the influence of Hollywood, MTV, etc and lack of respect for schools and learning.) God forbid. No, it's because they're forced to learn English. This mindset is the logical outcome of 'America is the root of all evil' thinking. Envy, hatred, failure to thrive...it can't be anything I'm doing. It's your fault! So you change.
Maybe they're going to make the English speaking kids take the test in Spanish, to be "fair".
And it's more of Mexico integrating with the US. Somehow, though, we become MiniMexico and not the other way around. Although why in the world the US should be thrilled at becoming more like a third world country, adopting their language, mores, etc., escapes me. Why not get Mexico to raise their standards, educate their poor, clean up their country? For some reason, that's not on.
Similarly, intense use of English in the early grades will produce the best English-related outcomes for native Spanish speakers. And, if your parents are illiterate in their native language (e.g.,illegal immigrants), you need English immersion even more.
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