At Fairview Elementary in Carthage, Missouri, students learn in both English and Spanish in their dual-language program. Students who are enrolled in the program spend half of their day learning core content subjects in Spanish and the other half of their day learning core content subjects in English. Students enrolled in this program are native English speakers and native Spanish speakers. By the time students in this program graduate high school, they will most likely be bilingual. This is the third year the school is running this program and the interest has been overwhelming. There is a waitlist for students to be enrolled in the program.
This is an interesting approach to learning that almost levels the playing field for ELL students. With half of the content being taught in their native language, students are able to focus on the content rather than the language and the content. This also gives the English speaking students an idea of what it is like to learn in a language they are not familiar with. Both ELL and native English speakers will benefit from the ability to speak both English and Spanish after high school graduation. It would be interesting to see the data as the students progress through school.
Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteI wrote a paper for one of my graduate courses about dual-language programs. Finding highly qualified teachers who can speak both languages with ease and have a mastery of the subjects they are teaching, is one of the most challenging aspects of dual-language programs. The students at this particular elementary school are fortunate to have this experience, and like you, I am curious to see the data from this program several years down the road.
What a great idea! I would love to see the results of this approach to dual-language learning in ten years or so. Hopefully it will be a success and we can create a nation of dual-language speakers. We are one of the only civilized countries that do not speak more than one language.
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