Mundo Verde - Check their Spanish

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Donde esta la biblioteca?

¿Dónde. ..

[Anonymous]

MV parent - 2 years in and our child has only had native Spanish speakers for Spanish classes. Most teachers are great teachers and they have a handful that are really fantastic rare finds. If they can continue to hold on to that handful it will really help them maintain good professional development within the school which they do have right now. The curriculum is great and very thoughtfully implemented, including if something is not meeting students needs or if parents express concerns I feel that they respond by making appropriate adjustments.

We are a bilingual family - 1 native Spanish, 1 native English speaker and the level/accuracy of Spanish or English that our child has received has never been a concern of ours. They send out A LOT of communications (there is a weekly newlestter, a parent listserv and a blog - all are bilingual except for some of the individual parent notes), which is fantastic because we feel that we know what is happening in the community. I don't worry too much if they haven't spend hours ensuring that it's perfect and error free because that is time that they are working on ensuring that my child is getting a great education, getting funding for the new building, working with the parent organization and making that the school, its teachers and will continue to succeed.

All that said, I was disappointed to see that the initial outreach email wasn't a little better to make a good 'first impression' on new parents - that is important. From our experience I don't think that email is an accurate indicator of the education our child has received either in Spanish or English.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I too noticed that the Spanish at LAMB was flawless and felt extremely confident with their presentation. I also noticed that the Spanish (from Spain) volunteer teachers at Powell, a lovely school, are teaching all the kids the vosotros form. Why on earth would you teach kids with a Central American background the vosotros, and furthermore, ask them to employ it in classwork, hang it on the wall, etc.? That to me reeks of snobbery and a total lack of understanding of kids they are working with. So maybe "perfect" grammar is also a liability.

How on earth would you teach Spanish without using vosotros? Regardless of how Spanish is spoken in Latin America, or English is spoken in Jamaica or SE DC, or French is spoken in Haiti, a school has the responsibility of teaching languages in an academically correct way. And that has nothing to do with snobbishness or intelligence blablabla it's just the responsibility of a school.

Vosotros and vos are not initially understood by the majority of native Spanish speakers in the world. I was very worried that my child's Spanish teacher came from Spain, and that she would introduce the Spaniard "lisp" and vosotros. Non immersion school, but even SHE had the sense not to teach vosotros, and my dc, who spoke Spanish for the first five years exclusively, has a wonderful accent.

The Spaniards believe that "'vosotros" is perfect grammar "regardless of how Spanish is spoken in Latin America" (we somehow bastardized it into "usted.") I beg your pardon Sir or Madam, but at Princeton when I took a class for Native speakers on how to write and read (analyze text) in Spanish, the teacher did not try to teach us "vosotros" either. Nor did the teachers in Spanish 101. How dare they? The effrontery? Clearly Princeton is teaching ghetto Spanish (and yes, when you compared it to the English spoken in SE DC, you revealed your biases.) You can ask Yale and Harvard what they teach, but I think the answer would be the same. Anyone who is teaching vosotros is not properly teaching Spanish.

Usted is hardly equivalent of how English is spoken in Jamaica or SE DC (hear the prejudice there, they know the difference between street talk and how you address your teacher) or how French is spoken in Haiti (I think they recognize it is not French, and call it a patois).

So let me get your perspective straight here, our kids should be taught "proper Spanish," and the "academically correct way" to do that is vosotros because Latin Americans (and Puerto Ricans) destroyed and bastardized your language. Jamaica also has a patois, that is purely Jamaican and folks from the US cannot understand it. Haitans can mostly speak proper French when they need to. That is also true of most conversations in SE, unless they are using street language to deliberately make sure a white person cannot understand it.

Your insistence on "vosotros" is akin to teaching British in all American schools because we were once their colonies and only they know the proper way to speak. PS in upperclass British, "would you like some salt" translates to us uncivilized Americans as "please pass the salt." We are not teaching the equivalent of Cockney (lower class British speech), it is the sensible way to teach. Eliza Doolittle may very well still exist in Britain, but not in the United States. We no longer teach thee or thou because, like Spaniard Spanish, for most it is antediluvian and irrelevant.

I think my Princeton Professors in the Spanish Department and the Latin American Studies Department (notice it was not the study of people who now usually call themselves Latino in the US, who have chosen to drop the reference to Spain in Hispanic (that would be anthropology probably)), and it was not the Spanish or Spaniard Studies department, it was the Latin American Studies Department, were all ok with usted as a choice. Heck that was what they were taught in Spanish 101. I'm sure at some point it was debated, but the Spaniards lost. You could call Harvard and Yale but I bet they have made the same sensible decision - to teach Spanish the way the MAJORITY of the population speaks it, not the people who at one time "discovered" and colonized our countries, who all seem to prove that a proper Spanish speaker has a deliberate lisp in his own language, but not in English. How odd. But not something to be admired, mimicked, or taught in a Spanish class.

I majored in Anthropology and minored in LAS and oddly enough, the issue of Spain did not come up much after we passed a certain century. The same way the Brits would not come up until WWI after the American Revolution. But Spain came up during the Spanish American War. I suppose you also think that phenotypically Africans are not Puerto Ricans and do not reside in Limon in Costa Rica. And what would you make of the indigenous groups - the descendants of the Aztecs for whom Spanish is a second language? They identify with their pueblos not their countries. I do not believe that most of them have a Spanish drop of blood in them. Is that what makes them bastards? For sure, they did not bastardize Spanish because even to this day they do not speak it properly (by Latin American standards, not by yours, because it is their second language and there is no need for fluency). It was the Spaniards that brought Spanish to Latin America and the people who mixed with them who continued it.

That we have mostly in some countries less Spaniard blood than you would like? You sound like you are the "one drop" type of person (in the Jim Crow days, anyone who looked remotely colored was colored) so I suppose your hierarchy still goes Spaniards, those who should be grateful that we civilized them in Latin America, and those ingrates who refused to accept our superior culture and retained their (inferior) one, like those who speak Nahuatl and come from Guerrero. But perhaps you have not even deigned to visit the former colonies, and socialize with your own kind. To everyone outside this culture the notion that Spaniards are relevant at all and Argentinians are better than the rest would seem absolutely ridiculous. As your insistence that "vosotros" is "proper grammar" seems to me. I cannot WAIT to post this on my FB page to get the reactions of my Latino friends. BTW, it might interest you that at Princeton, while I did not encounter a single Spaniard and had a sole Argentinian as an instructor, the Mexicans and others from "Latin America" certainly thought they were better than the Chicanos (who emigrated from Mexico) and the Puerto Ricans from the Island thought they were better than those from NYC. Enough of my stories.

When did you become God or the academic authority on proper grammar? If it was centuries ago, I would call Harvard and Yale (no need to call Princeton because we do not teach vosotros) to check what is considered "proper" or "correct" grammar, and alternatives that may be mentioned in passing as dialects like vos and vosotros, which they just mention so it does not knock you for a loop, as it did me.

[Anonymous]

I stand schooled. Thank you very much for taking the time to educate me. Honestly, and without any sarcasm. I simply had no idea.

[Anonymous]

Chillll. It's important to teach vosotros, not because it is somehow more correct than Latin American Spanish, but because it is part of being generally well-educated in Spanish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I too noticed that the Spanish at LAMB was flawless and felt extremely confident with their presentation. I also noticed that the Spanish (from Spain) volunteer teachers at Powell, a lovely school, are teaching all the kids the vosotros form. Why on earth would you teach kids with a Central American background the vosotros, and furthermore, ask them to employ it in classwork, hang it on the wall, etc.? That to me reeks of snobbery and a total lack of understanding of kids they are working with. So maybe "perfect" grammar is also a liability.

How on earth would you teach Spanish without using vosotros? Regardless of how Spanish is spoken in Latin America, or English is spoken in Jamaica or SE DC, or French is spoken in Haiti, a school has the responsibility of teaching languages in an academically correct way. And that has nothing to do with snobbishness or intelligence blablabla it's just the responsibility of a school.

South American here. I don't think teaching "vosotros" is essential, but it is helpful. The great majority of Spanish speakers in the world use "ustedes," so that should be the standard. However, in terms of learning "ustedes" conjugate the same as "ellos." Learning vosotros is useful for the sake of completeness. I learned it at school and found it useful.

That said, we should also learn the conjugation of "vos" for a matter or practicality. Did you know that "vos" is used in most countries in Latin America, one way or another? Not only Argentina and Uruguay, but all of Central America, and in some parts of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and even Chile. The only two countries where I am pretty confident vos is not used are Mexico and Peru. I'd argue that way more people use vos than vosotros.

By the way, "ustedes" is the formal, polite way to refer to the second person of plural -- vosotros is the informal way. What is funny is that some Latin Americans, when they want to emphasize elegance, artificially use vosotros, thinking that they are being overly formal -- the opposite is true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi, OP here.

I am from Spain, but I work in a Latin American environment for Latin American countries (in fact, I have been working in or for LAC countries for more than 10 years now). Most of my co-workers are from Latin America (Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Uruguay, … you name it) I live with a person from Peru. We definitely have different accents and some (many?) vocabulary is different (I.e. car is “coche” in Spanish from Spain but “carro” in Spanish of Peru, maíz vs choclo, aguacate vs palta, etc….), nevertheless the grammar and the spelling are the same.

The errors I was mentioning were not minor. I am referring to have a singular subject accompanying a plural verb, a totally non sense post, or a very wrong translation (i.e. the meaning in Spanish was very different from the meaning in English, and as a native speaker you could totally see why the mistake was done).

As a non-English native speaker in the US, working for a multinational company, I value very much the possibility of having a full immersion education. I regret not having had one, as it would definitely had made the difference (i.e. more career progression, much broader and better work options, etc…)

I am just saying, if you are looking for a school that prepares your children to speak like a native speaker, or close to that, MV is not the option. I would have loved that this was not the case, as from what I heard, there are many other nice things that might make MV a good alternative. Nevertheless, for me, it was a deal breaker. Knowing something so fundamental was wrong (i.e. being an immersion bilingual school and not having your most basic grammar correct) made me doubt about the rest. Moreover, I want my children to learn Spanish properly (if possible, academic Spanish) and I was afraid that been exposed to incorrect grammar and vocabulary could, instead of reinforcing what they learn at home, be even detrimental.

Regarding LAMB, my experience, limited to their Open House material and presentation, is that their Spanish was flawless.

Really? when we went to the LAMB open house there was a non-native Spanish speaker doing the simultaneous interpretation into Spanish. She was ok but not 100% correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I too noticed that the Spanish at LAMB was flawless and felt extremely confident with their presentation. I also noticed that the Spanish (from Spain) volunteer teachers at Powell, a lovely school, are teaching all the kids the vosotros form. Why on earth would you teach kids with a Central American background the vosotros, and furthermore, ask them to employ it in classwork, hang it on the wall, etc.? That to me reeks of snobbery and a total lack of understanding of kids they are working with. So maybe "perfect" grammar is also a liability.

How on earth would you teach Spanish without using vosotros? Regardless of how Spanish is spoken in Latin America, or English is spoken in Jamaica or SE DC, or French is spoken in Haiti, a school has the responsibility of teaching languages in an academically correct way. And that has nothing to do with snobbishness or intelligence blablabla it's just the responsibility of a school.

Vosotros and vos are not initially understood by the majority of native Spanish speakers in the world. I was very worried that my child's Spanish teacher came from Spain, and that she would introduce the Spaniard "lisp" and vosotros. Non immersion school, but even SHE had the sense not to teach vosotros, and my dc, who spoke Spanish for the first five years exclusively, has a wonderful accent.

The Spaniards believe that "'vosotros" is perfect grammar "regardless of how Spanish is spoken in Latin America" (we somehow bastardized it into "usted.") I beg your pardon Sir or Madam, but at Princeton when I took a class for Native speakers on how to write and read (analyze text) in Spanish, the teacher did not try to teach us "vosotros" either. Nor did the teachers in Spanish 101. How dare they? The effrontery? Clearly Princeton is teaching ghetto Spanish (and yes, when you compared it to the English spoken in SE DC, you revealed your biases.) You can ask Yale and Harvard what they teach, but I think the answer would be the same. Anyone who is teaching vosotros is not properly teaching Spanish.

Usted is hardly equivalent of how English is spoken in Jamaica or SE DC (hear the prejudice there, they know the difference between street talk and how you address your teacher) or how French is spoken in Haiti (I think they recognize it is not French, and call it a patois).

So let me get your perspective straight here, our kids should be taught "proper Spanish," and the "academically correct way" to do that is vosotros because Latin Americans (and Puerto Ricans) destroyed and bastardized your language. Jamaica also has a patois, that is purely Jamaican and folks from the US cannot understand it. Haitans can mostly speak proper French when they need to. That is also true of most conversations in SE, unless they are using street language to deliberately make sure a white person cannot understand it.

Your insistence on "vosotros" is akin to teaching British in all American schools because we were once their colonies and only they know the proper way to speak. PS in upperclass British, "would you like some salt" translates to us uncivilized Americans as "please pass the salt." We are not teaching the equivalent of Cockney (lower class British speech), it is the sensible way to teach. Eliza Doolittle may very well still exist in Britain, but not in the United States. We no longer teach thee or thou because, like Spaniard Spanish, for most it is antediluvian and irrelevant.

I think my Princeton Professors in the Spanish Department and the Latin American Studies Department (notice it was not the study of people who now usually call themselves Latino in the US, who have chosen to drop the reference to Spain in Hispanic (that would be anthropology probably)), and it was not the Spanish or Spaniard Studies department, it was the Latin American Studies Department, were all ok with usted as a choice. Heck that was what they were taught in Spanish 101. I'm sure at some point it was debated, but the Spaniards lost. You could call Harvard and Yale but I bet they have made the same sensible decision - to teach Spanish the way the MAJORITY of the population speaks it, not the people who at one time "discovered" and colonized our countries, who all seem to prove that a proper Spanish speaker has a deliberate lisp in his own language, but not in English. How odd. But not something to be admired, mimicked, or taught in a Spanish class.

I majored in Anthropology and minored in LAS and oddly enough, the issue of Spain did not come up much after we passed a certain century. The same way the Brits would not come up until WWI after the American Revolution. But Spain came up during the Spanish American War. I suppose you also think that phenotypically Africans are not Puerto Ricans and do not reside in Limon in Costa Rica. And what would you make of the indigenous groups - the descendants of the Aztecs for whom Spanish is a second language? They identify with their pueblos not their countries. I do not believe that most of them have a Spanish drop of blood in them. Is that what makes them bastards? For sure, they did not bastardize Spanish because even to this day they do not speak it properly (by Latin American standards, not by yours, because it is their second language and there is no need for fluency). It was the Spaniards that brought Spanish to Latin America and the people who mixed with them who continued it.

That we have mostly in some countries less Spaniard blood than you would like? You sound like you are the "one drop" type of person (in the Jim Crow days, anyone who looked remotely colored was colored) so I suppose your hierarchy still goes Spaniards, those who should be grateful that we civilized them in Latin America, and those ingrates who refused to accept our superior culture and retained their (inferior) one, like those who speak Nahuatl and come from Guerrero. But perhaps you have not even deigned to visit the former colonies, and socialize with your own kind. To everyone outside this culture the notion that Spaniards are relevant at all and Argentinians are better than the rest would seem absolutely ridiculous. As your insistence that "vosotros" is "proper grammar" seems to me. I cannot WAIT to post this on my FB page to get the reactions of my Latino friends. BTW, it might interest you that at Princeton, while I did not encounter a single Spaniard and had a sole Argentinian as an instructor, the Mexicans and others from "Latin America" certainly thought they were better than the Chicanos (who emigrated from Mexico) and the Puerto Ricans from the Island thought they were better than those from NYC. Enough of my stories.

When did you become God or the academic authority on proper grammar? If it was centuries ago, I would call Harvard and Yale (no need to call Princeton because we do not teach vosotros) to check what is considered "proper" or "correct" grammar, and alternatives that may be mentioned in passing as dialects like vos and vosotros, which they just mention so it does not knock you for a loop, as it did me.

Ouau. How much resentment! I am sorry for you.

[Anonymous]

When I attended the Open House the presentation was done in both languages and one of the presenters was from Venezuela. Perfect Spanish, and as she mentioned (someone asked about it), academically correct Spanish.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know the backgrounds of the Spanish teachers at Powell for the sake of this argument?

[Anonymous]

I'm the PP who initially brought up the issue of teaching vosotros at Powell. I'm not against teaching it, but it seemed inappropriate to ask kids to apply it in their school work. I think one of the richnesses of the Spanish language is its variation, and kids only gain by learning how Spanish is spoken in Spain, in Argentina, in Cuba, etc. But they shouldn't be expected to speak like Spaniards. That, I think, is a mistake.

And for the poster who said "Usted is hardly equivalent of how English is spoken in Jamaica or SE DC (hear the prejudice there, they know the difference between street talk and how you address your teacher) or how French is spoken in Haiti (I think they recognize it is not French, and call it a patois). "

Actually, English as it is spoken in Jamaica is called English. And they also speak Patois, which is a different language, some say a dialect, called Patois. In Haiti, French is French, and Creole is called Kreyol, not Patois, and it is a language, not a dialect. To say "Haitians can mostly speak proper French when they need to" is totally inaccurate and actually denigrates their use of Creole which is a language unto itself, and most Haitians are monolingual Creole speakers. To say it's like a secret language that they can use, but otherwise speak and understand French is just as discriminatory as the poster who said that all kids should learn vosotros.

[Anonymous]

DARN...Can my child just learn some Spanish.....broken or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DARN...Can my child just learn some Spanish.....broken or not.

This is how I feel, but I've noticed that I have correct her English at times. No boggie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DARN...Can my child just learn some Spanish.....broken or not.

[Anonymous]

This is a dumb thread started by somebody with little knowledge of a school or a vendetta.

Most MV spanish teachers are native Spanish speakers. In fact many of the English teachers who only teach English also speak Spanish.

In addition, for those who have boys, MV is the rare elementary school that has male teachers in every grade. Male teachers can serve as better role models than the typical female for most bo