|
Immersion helps students become bilingual
By ALEXANDRA CALDWELL
| Article published on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008 |
|
![[Image]](/content_images/111208_cit-01.jpg) |
| Photo by ALEXANDRA CALDWELL |
| A dual language immersion first-grade class at High Point Elementary works on an assignment in its Spanish classroom. When in that class, all the assignments are in Spanish and the teacher speaks only in Spanish. |
|
CLEARWATER – On tiny desks lie books like “Huevos verdes con jamón,” “Hay Un Molillo En Mi Bolsillo!,” “Un Bolsillo Para Corduroy,” and “Si Le Das Una Galletita a Un Raton.” (Or, “Green Eggs and Ham” and “There’s a Wocket in my Pocket!” by Dr. Seuss, “A Pocket for Corduroy” by Don Freeman, and “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” by Laura Joffe Numeroff.)
The textbooks and bulletin boards are in Spanish, the displayed student writing assignments are in Spanish, and the teacher speaks only in Spanish. Half the students in the class speak Spanish at home.
The dual language immersion program at High Point Elementary school in Clearwater is an innovative program that helps both Spanish- and English-speaking children become bilingual and biliterate in both English and Spanish.
A similar partial immersion program is available at Ridgecrest Elementary School and the Center for Gifted Students in Largo, although unlike High Point, classes are not composed of half Spanish-speakers and half English-speakers.
At both schools, there are two classes in each participating grade where students spend half their day in an English classroom where they do all their coursework in English. For the other half of the day it is in a different classroom where they do all their coursework in Spanish. All subjects are studied in both classrooms and the teachers only speak in the designated language.
“It starts very early so the children become very accustomed early in hearing the language,” said Jan Kucerik, supervisor of world languages for Pinellas County Schools. “Children are natural acquisitioners of language. It doesn’t really matter to them what language you speak to them in as long as it’s comprehensible. So the teachers make sure the language is very highly supported with context, whether that is visual or a song with which they are already familiar and much of the work is done through reading where there’s visual support for the text. So they gradually, naturally acquire the language just like they acquired their first language.”
The program at High Point is in its third year, now teaching kindergarten through second grade. The Ridgepoint partial immersion program is in its second year with first and second grades taught.
Kevin Gordon, principal at High Point, said he wanted to start the program at his school because about 45 percent of his students are Hispanic and about 30 percent are English for Speakers of Other Languages students, so they do not speak English at home. Gordon and a few of his teachers visited an immersion program in Kissimmee and they fell in love with it. Gordon said he told his teachers they should probably take a year to plan the program, but his teachers thought it was too important, so they spent all summer in 2006 putting together the curriculum and began with kindergarten for the 2006-2007 school year.
“For the Spanish-speakers, it allows them to maintain their native language,” Gordon said. “They get serviced in their own language, so that helps them make connections and learn across languages. And for the English-speakers, they get the benefit of learning Spanish and have the opportunity to become bilingual over the next six years.”
The program gets phased into additional grades as the students get older. Gordon has already placed teachers for next year’s third-grade dual language class.
Gordon said students will furthermore learn to appreciate different cultures and become more competitive in the workforce later because they will be biliterate, too.
Learning languages is also good for the brain, said Sylvia Amaya, immersion program coordinator for Pinellas County Schools.
“Learning a second language improves your cognitive skills, your thinking skills, your higher order thinking skills and that has been proven through research,” Amaya said. “But they’re also getting their content in English and in Spanish, so everything is reinforced in two languages.”
Research also shows that people who know two languages will have an easier time learning additional languages later, Amaya said.
The dual language program also helps close the learning gap between English and Spanish-speakers.
“For our native Spanish-speakers, it allows them to develop their literacy in their native language,” Kucerik said. “The language they have heard their whole life. And that will make them better readers in general because we know that literacy skills transfer. So a lot of the difficulty that native Spanish speaking students may be having in school has nothing to do with their ability to read – it has everything to do with the language.”
Test scores at High Point help prove this.
DIBELS is a reading fluency assessment that tests how fluently students read a passage in one minute, Gordon said. The students’ results are later highlighted either in red for students at high risk, yellow for some risk, green for meeting DIBELS benchmarks, and blue for exceeding. Currently there are no red scores in the High Point Kindergarten dual language program, only a few in first grade and only one in second grade. There are many more blue and green scores in the dual language program than in the traditional classes.
In other data from High Point common assessment reading tests, this year’s second-graders in the dual language classes scored 93 and 100 percent of the number of students at or above the expected reading level for the first cycle. The traditional classes scored in the 50 and 60 percent range.
“These kids aren’t gifted students,” Gordon said of the High Point kids. “They’re just your regular, average Joe students who are doing real well. So I think that’s a huge and important piece to be aware of because kids are being successful, and we’re 84 percent free and reduced lunch, which equates to high poverty.”
Pinellas County has a long history with language programs, Amaya said. In 1986 the district started the Foreign Language in the Elementary School program in four schools where two teachers taught Spanish for 20 to 30 minutes a day. This expanded into more schools and grew to 11 teachers, Amaya said, until big budget cuts hit in 1991 and the program was cut. Fortunately, she said, two magnet schools opened two years later, so Perkins and Baypoint Elementary schools started having a foreign language program where students take Spanish for 20 to 30 minutes every day.
But the world language program wanted to do more, so Kucerik applied for and received a Foreign Language Assistance Program grant and was able to start the two immersion programs. Kucerik said that given the success of the programs so far, the district will apply for another grant this year to either expand the current program to two additional schools or to expand the program to additional languages.
The district will hold open houses and talk with principals who may be interested in bringing an immersion program to their schools, she said.
 |
Article published on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008
Copyright © Tampa Bay Newspapers: All rights reserved. |
