Reply to Region 1 - what's going to happen with language immersion under the regional model?

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Region 1 - what's going to happen with language immersion under the regional model?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It seems a little odd to create this new language program at Whitman but no language pathway at the HS level for the hundreds kids doing Spanish in elementary and middle school. [/quote]

What exactly are you looking for beyond AP Spanish Language and AP Spanish Literature?[/quote]

4 years of language classes suited to children who are already semi-fluent in the language when they start high school.[/quote]

+1 Spanish lit for example. Latin American history in Spanish[/quote]

Yes, the kids need help maintaining their skills until college.  It’s just not the same to be in a class of kids who are relative novices in the language.

I understand we can’t offer everything, but MCPS throws a ton of money at these immersion programs only to let it fizzle out at the end.[/quote]

+1 and I think something that often gets lost in discussions about language programs is that it is huge amount of effort for the child to learn a second language. People think it happens automatically. It doesn't, they have to work at it. And with the TWI programs, they imposed this extra labor on families that didn't necessarily ask for it (everyone that goes to a TWI school is in the TWI program), without giving the schools basic necessary resources to implement the programs well, like books. The first kids that went through our school's TWI program are now in 7th grade and set to be the first group that deals with the disaster that will be the regional program model. We know it will be a disaster because they also half-assed the implementation of TWI and are now crying that these kids have worse math and literacy outcomes than other kids (unless they are wealthy kids whose parents hire tutors).

So these 7th graders who were the guinea pigs for the botched implementation of TWI get to be the guinea pigs for the afterthought regional programs they decide to put at Einstein. And MCPS just forgets about all the hard work these kids put in , with no opportunities to continue their Spanish learning in a meaningful way in high school. They just ignore it and place a language program at a wealthy high school across town instead.

And you know what, we can't have everything, and I am grateful for my child's opportunity to benefit from TWI even though we did have to hire a tutor, but then I ask myself, why why why are they pretending they can implement dozens of new high school programs at dozens of high schools when they can't even get the programs they have now right, several years after they created them?[/quote]

I didn’t know TWI immersion was having these kinds of issues.  Is it school to school?[/quote]

I thought the evaluation showed that the TWI kids were initially behind, but eventually caught up.  And this was to be expected precisely because they are learning in 2 languages.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics