Pros and Cons on your school's teaching of a second language

[Anonymous]

I am looking for things to consider when looking at how a second language is taught and how it varies from school to school. What are the pros and cons in your situation?

I know that one of the things to consider is in which grades the children begin to study languages and what options are available to them. What grades does your school begin and which options are provided? If you can share the school, that will be helpful as well in my school searching process.

[Anonymous]

My son's school is in the burbs, so probably not much help. Spanish starts in kindergarten, and is immersion, but it's only one day a week. The program is nice, though, in that they use things like songs, which my son gravitates to quickly. So he is picking up some Spanish. I would prefer daily Spanish of course.

[Anonymous]

Unless it's true daily immersion (WIS or one of the public/charter bilingual/immersion options), I don't think it really matters much. I guess I'd hope for native speakers as instructors; a playful attitude (most children think that learning a bit of Spanish or another language is really fun, and the school's approach should reflect that); and realist goals for what children can get out of a few hours a week of foreign language instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless it's true daily immersion (WIS or one of the public/charter bilingual/immersion options), I don't think it really matters much. I guess I'd hope for native speakers as instructors; a playful attitude (most children think that learning a bit of Spanish or another language is really fun, and the school's approach should reflect that); and realist goals for what children can get out of a few hours a week of foreign language instruction.

That should be "realistic goals," sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am looking for things to consider when looking at how a second language is taught and how it varies from school to school. What are the pros and cons in your situation?

I know that one of the things to consider is in which grades the children begin to study languages and what options are available to them. What grades does your school begin and which options are provided? If you can share the school, that will be helpful as well in my school searching process.

Go to the websites of the schools that you are interested in and look up the information. It is one thing to ask about a school or two and how that school does something. It is another for you to ask us to do your research. We all have done the research we needed to see which schools meet our criteria.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son's school is in the burbs, so probably not much help. Spanish starts in kindergarten, and is immersion, but it's only one day a week. The program is nice, though, in that they use things like songs, which my son gravitates to quickly. So he is picking up some Spanish. I would prefer daily Spanish of course.

Then your son's program isn't immersion if only meets once a week.
Answering OP's question, the idea of a FLES program (Foreign Language in an Elementary School) is to introduce a Language to a population of students. The goal is not to make students fluent in the target language, for that there are immersion programs.
This is what a FLES program should aim to:
Program Goals:
To expose students to Spanish (or any other target language) at the beginning stage of language acquisition.
To provide a meaningful context for developing communication skills in Spanish.
To build an understanding and appreciation for the cultures of the Spanish-speaking world.
To strengthen the language competency of Spanish speaking students (native or heritage speakers).

I personally think it is a good idea to expose young children to other languages, this ccountry is painfully monolingual and needs to be more in tune with the rest of the world.

[Anonymous]

It's a terrible idea. Our children's school stopped teaching French. Said there was no demand. Now they are teaching them Spanish. SPANISH!!!

As soon as the third grader and the fifth grader figure out they can talk to each other and DH and I have no idea because we took French, we are totally done for!

Some preschools now offer Spanish, fyi, to PP's point about starting more towards the time of language acquisition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son's school is in the burbs, so probably not much help. Spanish starts in kindergarten, and is immersion, but it's only one day a week. The program is nice, though, in that they use things like songs, which my son gravitates to quickly. So he is picking up some Spanish. I would prefer daily Spanish of course.

Then your son's program isn't immersion if only meets once a week.
Answering OP's question, the idea of a FLES program (Foreign Language in an Elementary School) is to introduce a Language to a population of students. The goal is not to make students fluent in the target language, for that there are immersion programs.
This is what a FLES program should aim to:
Program Goals:
To expose students to Spanish (or any other target language) at the beginning stage of language acquisition.
To provide a meaningful context for developing communication skills in Spanish.
To build an understanding and appreciation for the cultures of the Spanish-speaking world.
To strengthen the language competency of Spanish speaking students (native or heritage speakers).

I personally think it is a good idea to expose young children to other languages, this ccountry is painfully monolingual and needs to be more in tune with the rest of the world.

It is immersion in that it's taught 100% in Spanish. No English allowed.

[Anonymous]

all languages have to be taught in the target language, otherwise it is not effective.
Immersion only refers to frequency which makes it possible for a student to become fluent or not

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:all languages have to be taught in the target language, otherwise it is not effective.
Immersion only refers to frequency which makes it possible for a student to become fluent or not

No, immersion means two different things.

One is a teaching technique, in which the entire class is in the target language, including routine directions etc . . . This is not the only way to teach a language, and at the MS and HS level it's not even the most common. You will often see teachers switch into children's dominant language to explain a grammar concept or give routine directions.

People also use immersion to mean schools where all subjects, or half of the day, are in the target language.

[Anonymous]

We're in a Jewish day school, so Hebrew and Judaics are about 40% of the day, beginning in preK or K. Since it's a different alphabet, and many of the parents aren't fluent in the language themselves, the earlier the better!

[Anonymous]

My child is at the German School, so this is coming at the question from a different angle. Their full curriculum is in German, but they start teaching English as a second language in 1st Grade. That year it's 45 minutes a day, two days per week. In 2nd and 3rd grades it expands to 45 minutes a day, four days per week. In 4th grade it expands again to a total of five 45 minute periods each week. They offer Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced classes to cater to kids ranging from new arrivals to native speakers. It is by no means immersive, but the kids benefit from learning the dominant language as their second language, as their whole life outside of the school is an English language immersion experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless it's true daily immersion (WIS or one of the public/charter bilingual/immersion options), I don't think it really matters much....

I've seen this sort of comment on DCUM before ("only daily immersion is effective at teaching language"), and it always strikes me as odd. I'm sure many of us have taken non-immersion language classes, and gotten quite effective at learning the language. I'm sure a true immersion approach would very effectively teach language, but saying that's the only effective way for a child to learn a second language seems to go to far. Just seems counter-intuitive to me.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding these claims?

[Anonymous]

I interpreted that comment to mean that unless you are comparing daily immersion programs and other programs, the differences among most language programs for younger grades don't matter much. Whether you start in 1st grade or 2nd or whether you have 50 minutes a week or 90 is not going to make a huge difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I interpreted that comment to mean that unless you are comparing daily immersion programs and other programs, the differences among most language programs for younger grades don't matter much. Whether you start in 1st grade or 2nd or whether you have 50 minutes a week or 90 is not going to make a huge difference.

+1