Foreign Language Immersion
by Pat Maness, Principal of Richmond Drive
Bienvenido! Welcome to learning about a new tool in foreign
language instruction. It’s call “immersion.” Both Ebinport and Richmond Drive
In our
immersion programs, students will spend half of their day learning math and
science standards in Spanish and the remaining half day learning other kindergarten
standards in English. Our goals are for students to be able to read and write
in both their native language and a second language, to master subject content,
and to understand and appreciate another culture.
In
traditional language programs in Rock Hill Schools, elementary and secondary
students receive foreign language instruction as a separate class. In immersion
classes, however, students will be taught grade-level math and science content
standards in the new language, rather than being taught the new language independently. The teacher and aide will talk exclusively in
Spanish with their class for half of the day, and then the students will go to
another teacher for instruction in English for the second half of the day. This
model, which builds on the traditional world language instruction already
offered in our schools, is called a Two-Way or Bi-Lingual Partial Immersion.
Researchers
at the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) at the University of Minnesota
●Students achieve a higher level of world language
proficiency than students in classrooms using traditional language instruction.
●They
score at the same or higher level as peers on standardized tests in English.
●They
develop better problem-solving abilities.
●Non-native
English speakers in the class develop higher levels of proficiency in English
than peers in traditional ESOL (English Speakers of Other Languages) programs
Students
who begin an immersion program in kindergarten will continue immersion
instruction each year as the schools add immersion to succeeding grades. By the end of elementary school, these
students will have been taught half of each day in the foreign language, and
proficiency levels will be far greater than those for students in traditional
foreign language programs.
Middle
and high school instruction will be re-designed to build on these enhanced
language skills. Since the community our students will live and work in is
becoming more and more globally diverse, a high proficiency in communicating in
a second language enhances employment possibilities for these students in areas
such as international business, tourism, and government.
For
families who apply through our schools of choice program, immersion foreign
language instruction will engage students in exciting in-depth learning of a
second language. We invite parents who are interested in immersion for their
children entering kindergarten in the fall of 2012 to contact us for further
information and to attend meetings about schools of choice later this year as
they are scheduled and publicized. This is an exciting new era of language
instruction in our district, and we invite you to join us.
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