FCPS Immersion Program efficacy
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Anonymous
If this is your take away you have trouble comprehending English. |
Anonymous
I’m the PP. monitoring kids speech on the playground could make a difference but in the case of Spanish immersion 99% of the native Spanish speakers are already fluent English speakers. At least when my now HS kids were in ES, the language on the playground was English. Native Spanish speaking parents wanted their kids to focus on English (I can understand this coming from an immigrant household). |
Anonymous
Your reply is to the wrong post. I said nothing about whether money should be spent on immersion. Some here do not understand the goals of immersion (and create their own goals which don’t align with what the schools’ goals are). |
Anonymous
In the case of kids already fluent in the language - this helps and hurts. If the fluent kids can talk to the non-fluent kids in the target language then that helps acquisition a lot. But why are they in immersion if English is the prime focus? They should just stick English. I think immersion can be fixed but you got to use tricks used by bi or tri-lingual countries. "Book Learning" your way to a language isn't the easiest way. |
Anonymous
If classes are that small the school should combine 2 grades of students into one JIP class. |
Anonymous
Because the goal for immersion isn’t fluency. It is brain development. Fluency when it happens is a happy accident in ES. |
Anonymous
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People vastly underestimate how hard it can be for at least 40% of students to read in English without structured systematic phonics instruction. Way too many immersion schools don’t spend enough time in in ENGLISH phonics
I don’t understand why the programs don’t start in third grade and only kids who are at grade level in English can enter. So many kids who have foccicukty reading in English transfer out |
Anonymous
The JIP Teachers already combine 2 (sometimes 3) grades. |
Anonymous
Which school is this? |
Anonymous
Just to clarify, the small program is at Great Falls ES. The JI program at Fox Mill is far more robust. There are 2 full classes with 30 kids in some of the grades. My kids class started first grade with 32 kids and ended 6th grade with 25 kids. The other class was similar. There is a Japanese Cultural Committee that puts on programs throughout the year for the entire school. The biggest gripe is that the program splits the kids into two groups, JI and non-JI, which bothers some parents. |
Anonymous
| All four of my kids did the partial langauge immersion program at our neighborhood school. We chose to stay in the program instead of move to an AAP center when our oldest was in third grade. We were lucky enough that our school introduced a local AAP program when our second oldest was in third grade, so our younger three kids have gotten the best of both worlds. My two oldest kids (now young adults) are fluent, my third kid is conversational (and has taken the target language classes throughout high school). Our youngest is still in the E.S. immersion program. If you want your kid to learn more than just the vocab or receptive language skills, you really have to support the target language outside of the classroom (our kids' teachers offered suggestions when we asked since we don't speak the language at home), and your kid would benefit from continuing to take the language in middle and high school. That said, vocab and receptive language skills are also great outcomes! It just takes work outside of a classroom to achieve more than that. |
Anonymous
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Personally, I think students from Spanish speaking households, should first learn how to read and write in Spanish, since it is much easier than doing so in English. Once they learn the mechanics, they can l transfer those skills to English. Give these kids some time to build more English vocabulary on the playground, and their environment. Then go into reading and writing instruction. Expecting kids to read and write in English, when their vocabularies are so limited is a sure way to keep them uninterested in education.
My family is bilingual (Spanish/English). My kids learned Spanish first. When it came time to sign my kids up for Kindergarten, we did not choose the fcps immersion programs because they did not focus on Language Arts in the target language. We were told one of the goals was for the kids to learn English or Spanish from each other. My kids already spoke both, and could read some easy words in Spanish before kindergarten. It just didn’t make sense for is. Now, if they focused on Language Arts in Spanish, we would have entered the lottery. |
Anonymous
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Both of my kids did Spanish immersion. One is now a college sophomore who may minor in Spanish and is studying Latin American history. The second is a high school freshman. The older completed the IB diploma. The younger is two years ahead in math. I don’t think immersion hurt them one bit - in fact, I think it helped them.
I never expected fluency but I will tell you this. My oldest got off the waitlist for immersion in 2nd grade. By the third semester, we were in Target and walked by a mother/son duo and the mom was speaking in Spanish. My kid looked at me and said “mom, I know what she was saying! She was asking him if he wanted the blue coat or the red coat!” I was kind of shocked because it had been maybe 6 months into the program and they hadn’t had Spanish before this. Long story short, I am a big believer in immersion. My oldest had probably 30 or so kids in the cohort when they graduated and my youngest test probably had 30-35. My only wish is that our high school had a stronger Spanish program. But my oldest did pass the IB Spanish HL with a 6 or 7 - enough that they were able to skip two levels of Spanish in college, which covered their language requirement. We took them both to Spain a couple years ago and the oldest was a big help in translating and I think it boosted their confidence. I’ll never stop advocating for immersion. |
Anonymous
| Our zoned elementary offered both immersion and level IV AAP. It was the right choice for our kids. I don’t think the regular IV at the home school anyway would have been rigorous enough for them. The added neural pathway development of learning a second language is invaluable. Yes their receptive language is better than their expressive, but it is all coming along. We do not speak it at home, but have done some travel(a week at a time, not the summer.) We would choose it again. My older child is excited for the opportunity to take latin in HS after finishing the first 3years of a language early. |
Anonymous
Source? |