Interesting about the teachers. I think the program does benefit english speaking kids more than spanish speaking kids in elementary school especially if there are native speaking kids in class. I guess in turn those children learn to read and write better in spanish? Are these only spanish speaking children also in ESOL?

Anonymous wrote:
You don't know what you're talking about. No elementary teachers are "accredited" in math. It doesn't matter if they speak English or Chinese or Spanish. They are certified to teach all elementary subjects. Some are certified specifically for the primary grades, while others are certified for grades 1-6. Spanish immersion teachers in FCPS have to be certified in elementary education.

I teach in a language immersion school and we have teachers who are not certified in elementary education, but have a language certification.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is a little perplexing to run a Spanish immersion program at an overwhelmingly Hispanic population school.

I thought the point was to teach students English for those Hispanic children where Spanish is the primary language at home.

OP here. The school that offers Spanish immersion in our area does have a very high Hispanic population. I think it is about 1/3 Hispanic.

I think the point is for Spanish speakers to learn English and vice versa. DH thinks our kids should learn History in English and not Spanish.

I teach at a FCPS immersion school, although it is a language other than Spanish. I have the students for language arts and social studies...in English. They take math and science in the immersion language.

Math is taught in Spanish?!?! I would think that takes away a lot from the lessons.

And at the Spanish immersion school in our area...the Math teachers are not accredited in Math...they are accredited in Spanish. Not a big problem in the lower grades but in grades like 4th etc I think that is unacceptable.

You don't know what you're talking about. No elementary teachers are "accredited" in math. It doesn't matter if they speak English or Chinese or Spanish. They are certified to teach all elementary subjects. Some are certified specifically for the primary grades, while others are certified for grades 1-6. Spanish immersion teachers in FCPS have to be certified in elementary education.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is a little perplexing to run a Spanish immersion program at an overwhelmingly Hispanic population school.

I thought the point was to teach students English for those Hispanic children where Spanish is the primary language at home.

OP here. The school that offers Spanish immersion in our area does have a very high Hispanic population. I think it is about 1/3 Hispanic.

I think the point is for Spanish speakers to learn English and vice versa. DH thinks our kids should learn History in English and not Spanish.

American kids should learn EVERYthing in English and not Spanish. Foreign language classes, regardless of language, are the exception.
Sadly in this area they are going to see Spanish everywhere they go because foreign invaders are being catered to.

You are an idiot.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is a little perplexing to run a Spanish immersion program at an overwhelmingly Hispanic population school.

I thought the point was to teach students English for those Hispanic children where Spanish is the primary language at home.

OP here. The school that offers Spanish immersion in our area does have a very high Hispanic population. I think it is about 1/3 Hispanic.

I think the point is for Spanish speakers to learn English and vice versa. DH thinks our kids should learn History in English and not Spanish.

I teach at a FCPS immersion school, although it is a language other than Spanish. I have the students for language arts and social studies...in English. They take math and science in the immersion language.

Math is taught in Spanish?!?! I would think that takes away a lot from the lessons.

And at the Spanish immersion school in our area...the Math teachers are not accredited in Math...they are accredited in Spanish. Not a big problem in the lower grades but in grades like 4th etc I think that is unacceptable.

Anonymous wrote: I think your average kid learning Spanish in an immersion program is gaining more.

I gently disagree. My DH's family is South American. He and his cousins are all fluent Spanish speakers but none of them were educated in Spanish. They don't read/writ well in Spanish and so they feel somewhat less 'educated'. The Spanish speaking kids gain just as much as the non-Spanish speakers by being educated in both languages. There's also been a lot of research documenting the benefits for both groups - I just don't have time to pull it up...

FCPS also has a Student Achievement Goal that states that every child should be proficient in two languages, so clearly it's a priority in the eyes of the district. Personally I think there needs to be MORE immersion schools in the district. They are expanding, but it's going to be a slow expansion. The cost is very, very low (just a few staff members tops to accomodate the need for a separate class), but otherwise not a lot of start up or maintenance. Immersion is such a good model - and I would love to see more kids with access to programs like this one.

Anonymous wrote:This should not be an immigration debate; it is about educational opportunities and frankly I think it benefits American- born English- only speaking kids by teaching them foreign language at a young age which will help them achieve fluency, have greater facility in other linguistic endeavors, like learning English vocabulary through their knowledge of roots and cognates, and a broader global mindset. The native speakers of the foreign language would still be able to get ESOL services if needed without an immersion program so while they benefit from it also, I think your average kid learning Spanish in an immersion program is gaining more.

All that said, and I say this as a speaker of several languages, including Spanish, I personally am not comfortable with the idea of making this choice for my child. I think there are definitely people who have the gift of learning language and others who struggle. I think part of what makes kids successful at language is the having the gift and/ or having their own motivation and interest. I wouldn't not push my kids to do foreign language immersion any more than I would force them to do ballet or play piano.

Sorry, typo in my note. I meant to type I would NOT push them to do immersion any more than I would force another activity although I would encourage study of another language when they are interested and have the opportunity.

This should not be an immigration debate; it is about educational opportunities and frankly I think it benefits American- born English- only speaking kids by teaching them foreign language at a young age which will help them achieve fluency, have greater facility in other linguistic endeavors, like learning English vocabulary through their knowledge of roots and cognates, and a broader global mindset. The native speakers of the foreign language would still be able to get ESOL services if needed without an immersion program so while they benefit from it also, I think your average kid learning Spanish in an immersion program is gaining more.

All that said, and I say this as a speaker of several languages, including Spanish, I personally am not comfortable with the idea of making this choice for my child. I think there are definitely people who have the gift of learning language and others who struggle. I think part of what makes kids successful at language is the having the gift and/ or having their own motivation and interest. I wouldn't not push my kids to do foreign language immersion any more than I would force them to do ballet or play piano.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is a little perplexing to run a Spanish immersion program at an overwhelmingly Hispanic population school.

I thought the point was to teach students English for those Hispanic children where Spanish is the primary language at home.

OP here. The school that offers Spanish immersion in our area does have a very high Hispanic population. I think it is about 1/3 Hispanic.

I think the point is for Spanish speakers to learn English and vice versa. DH thinks our kids should learn History in English and not Spanish.

I teach at a FCPS immersion school, although it is a language other than Spanish. I have the students for language arts and social studies...in English. They take math and science in the immersion language.

Math is taught in Spanish?!?! I would think that takes away a lot from the lessons.

Math and science are usually the first/ easiest subjects to teach in a foreign language because they are more objective and do not require such a great vocabulary.

I have kids in a majority minority school in FCPS. The largest group is Hispanic. The school also has a partial Spanish immersion program. Half the kids speak Spanish at home, half the kids speak English. One of my kids is in the program, another one started in the program but was identified with learning disabilities and at the end of that school year we took him out of the program (he's still at that school, just not in the immersion program). Kids with LD are capable of learning a foreign language but special ed is in English, not the foreign language and we felt he had enough challenges without having to try and keep up in the foreign language. My kids are in elementary school. My DH's cousin also has kids that went through the immersion program, they're now in high school.

We're very happy with the program but it's not for every child and it's not for every parent. In my experience, the teachers aren't always the 'best' (then, again, your child may not be assigned to the best teacher in the grade anyway) and if your DC tests into the AAP classes, you're going to have to chose between immersion and AAP - although differentiated instruction will be offered. Also, it seems the class sizes are larger. For us, foreign language fluency is more important than AAP. Our rationale was that if our DC needed additional assistance in an academic area or needed greater challenges, we could always supplement with tutoring. But, that's not been the case. Her progress is pretty much what we expected but we also think she's the kind of kid who would have thrived in just about any environment.

Our DS with the LD would not have thrived in any environment. He needs the small, intense, repetitive environment of the special ed classroom. He's very smart but learning isn't easy for him. His general ed classrooms tend to have fewer students than the immersion classrooms and by the time he hit 3rd grade, there's no way he would have been at grade level math if it had been taught in Spanish. School generates enough anxiety for him when it's taught in English, I can only imagine how his anxiety would sky rocket if we'd made him continue in Spanish.

Our cousins with the high school kids are very happy they did it. Their kids aren't at a level with native speakers but they speak quite well, their accents are excellent and they've excelled academcally. HTH

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there a large population of immigrants from Germany in West Springfield (Orange Hunt Elementary School)?

The purpose of the immersion program in the schools is to immerse non-speakers of the language. I'm sure they have some native German speakers, but it would be a very small number of the whole student population, I'm sure. It would be the same for the other languages. The purpose is for the students to learn a new language.

That's what I originally thought, but some of the earlier posts made me think that it was meant for native speakers of the (non-English) language being taught.

Your original thought was correct, otherwise it would be more of an ESOL program.

Anonymous wrote:

Math is taught in Spanish?!?! I would think that takes away a lot from the lessons.

No. The students do quite well with math in the immersion language. I will admit that one flaw in the program is if children have difficulty with school in English, they have even more difficulty with math and science in the immersion language. By 3rd grade, and especially 4th, the majority of students are quite proficient with the language, but there are always a couple (sometimes LD) who struggle with it an quite honestly would be better served receiving math and science in English.

I would consider putting my own elementary aged child in the immersion program where I teach, but he attends PWCS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there a large population of immigrants from Germany in West Springfield (Orange Hunt Elementary School)?

The purpose of the immersion program in the schools is to immerse non-speakers of the language. I'm sure they have some native German speakers, but it would be a very small number of the whole student population, I'm sure. It would be the same for the other languages. The purpose is for the students to learn a new language.

That's what I originally thought, but some of the earlier posts made me think that it was meant for native speakers of the (non-English) language being taught.

I think it's a good idea. Yes, spanish can come in handy in many parts of the world, so it's practical in that sense. But I think languages are picked up much more easily by younger kids, and once you've learned the roots and rules of one, it can be easier to pick up more languages with similar roots down the road. I started learning spanish in high school, which made it easier to take french later on. Had I started earlier on the spanish, I might have been even better at both languages and maybe moved on to Italian. We started our daughter in Spanish before she was 3, though not immersion.