A: Language Immersion

• Has a positive effect on intellectual growth
• Enriches and enhances a child's mental development
• Develops students who have more flexibility in thinking, a higher degree of creativity, greater sensitivity to language, and a better ear for listening
• Maximizes the brain's window of opportunity for easy language acquisition (birth through age 10)
• Improves a child's understanding of his/her native language
• Helps develop stronger communication skills in English
• Opens the door to other cultures and helps a child to understand and appreciate people from other countries
• Gives the child the ability to communicate with Spanish-speaking people he or she would otherwise not have a chance to know
• Provides enough a head start in language requirements for college
• Increases job opportunities in many careers where knowing another language is a real asset in this global economy

Some parents are surprised when they enter a kindergarten room to hear the teacher speaking in Spanish while the children are speaking English. They may not realize that the human language acquisition process does not produce immediate results. In the first year of life, a baby learns how to listen for the sounds of the language and begins to bobble. In the second year, a toddler begins to say isolated words and then builds phrases and finally whole sentences.

Immersion children are learning the second language in much the same way as they learned the first. In the early months, children will begin to use an occasional Spanish word in an English sentence. For the remainder of the year, you may hear children at school say things like:

• "I forgot my botas (boots) today."
• "Let's go back to the mesa (table)."
• "Give me the rojo (red) one."

Slowly the isolated words turn into Spanish phrases and then sentences. By March of first grade, teachers expect students to converse only in Spanish. They gently encourage students to speak Spanish with motivational programs, and advise students who are having difficulty thinking of a certain word in Spanish to ask, "¿Cómo se dice.?" How do you say..? The teacher will then tell the child how to say it in Spanish. To be successful at learning Spanish, your child needs to attend school regularly and on time.

And then suddenly one day, as if by magic, the child will amaze all when he or she can converse in Spanish!

But please do not insist on your child performing in Spanish at home!

Let them decide how much they wish to say!

Q: Will the immersion teacher speak any English during Spanish time?

A: Immersion teaching methods dictate that the teacher will not translate what they say in Spanish into English. The reason for this is that if the adult switches into English, students tend to shut out the second language and wait for the English translation. In addition, students will not think of the second language as a credible means of communication.

Q: When is English introduced?

A: English reading, language arts, and spelling are introduced in second grade. When English is introduced, the teacher does not have to start from scratch. He or she helps the children to build on what they already know about reading and guides them through the process of sorting out the areas of interference in sounds between English and Spanish. Studies have consistently shown that immersion students will be working at the same level as their English-only peers within two years.

Q: Should your child read in English?

A: We strongly encourage you not to teach formal English reading lessons at home because for fear of your child will be behind English-only peers. This only serves to lengthen an already long school day and perhaps confuse the child.

You should, however, help your child by continuing to read, discuss and enjoy stories in English on a daily basis. By all means, encourage and praise any attempts the child makes to read in English. Once children have developed some confidence in reading in Spanish, they will usually attempt to read English using their Spanish phonic skills. This leads to a great opportunity to develop problem solving skills and reading strategies.

The most important thing you could do to contribute to your child's academic success is to help establish a love of reading early on. Read to your child often and let your child see you reading. Take him or her to the library and help him or her to pick out books he or she will enjoy. Expose your child to a variety of literature, such as:

• Repetitive books and nursery rhymes that the child will soon be able to "read" along with you
• Stories and poems about every life to which they can relate
• Books about experiences that are foreign to them (ex: horseback riding for an urban child, or books about long ago times)
• Fun material with silly riddles and rhymes
• Nonfiction books that will expand the child's knowledge of the world
• Books related to their own culture
• When you are discussing stories with your children, you can help them develop overall language skills and build background knowledge by encouraging them to become active listeners with the following strategies: Ask for their opinions about the story. Did they like it? Why or why not?
• Discuss the pictures. What information can they gather from pictures that they didn't get from the text?
• Ask key points in the story, stop and ask what might com next. Older often have fun making up alternative endings to stories.

Please, never translate written instructions word for word. If your child is having problems completing his/her homework frequently, please discuss it with your child's teacher.

Q: What if my child will need extra help or an extra challenge?

A: Individual classrooms teachers provide enrichment activities utilizing a variety of Spanish resources. Students entering Our Lady of Guadalupe at first grade receive additional help in the second language to ease the transition into Spanish. If a child has a learning problem, special learning difficulties are handled on and individual basis. Whenever possible, an effort is made to help the child through Spanish.

Q: What are the differences in instructional approach and sequencing in English and Spanish language arts? Does this vary by program model and grade level?

A: There are few differences in teaching literacy in English and in Spanish, especially as children become more fluent readers and writers. Instruction that highlights comprehension skills and reading fluency is appropriate in both languages. Probably the greatest differences in teaching Spanish and English language arts occur in the primary grades during initial literacy instruction. These instructional differences are due to internal structural differences in the two languages. Spanish has a shallow orthography, meaning that there is a very clear sound/symbol correspondence: In most cases, each sound is represented by one letter, and each letter represents one sound. In contrast, English has a deep orthography, meaning that the sound/symbol correspondence is less clear.

Many sounds can be represented in more than one way, and also many letters (or letter combinations) can represent more than one sound. These differences affect the way early reading is taught in the two languages. In Spanish, an early literacy program that focuses on learning the sounds associated with letters and syllables can be very successful in teaching children to read. As a result, both English dominant and Spanish dominant children can learn to decode in Spanish effectively through a phonetic, syllabic approach. However, since sound/symbol correspondences are not always as clear in English, early English literacy programs tend to use a balance of phonics and sight word techniques.

In addition, the role of vowels in teaching language arts in Spanish is different than it is in English. Spanish literacy programs frequently start by teaching children the vowels; while in English teachers generally start with consonants.

The amount of Spanish grammar presented in context is not difficult to master. The difficulty lies in any absolute difference that will be encountered. Such a difference will be a point in grammar definitely dissimilar from English grammar or new to an English-speaking learner.

Different from English are: Position of adjectives

• Object pronouns
• Uses of the subjunctive
• Idioms
• Reflexive verbs
• Double negatives
• Word order
• Gender and number agreement

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Q: What literacy skills transfer across English and Spanish and which need to be taught explicitly in each language? A: There are universal literacy concepts and skills that all readers, regardless of language, possess. These skills and concepts transfer from one language to another and don't need to be explicitly taught. There are other skills and concepts that are language-specific and must be explicitly taught.

Universal concepts and skills that transfer across all languages:

• Alphabetic and orthographic awareness. All readers understand that the marks on a page are symbols that represent sounds. Readers of alphabetic languages (such as English and Spanish) further understand that letters have names and sounds and that letters combine to form words, phrases, and sentences. Thus, the fact that letters have names and sounds transfers across English and Spanish. (But teachers need to teach children the different letter names and sounds in the two languages).
• Meaningfulness of print. A powerful source of transfer is the notion that print carries meaning. Readers know that reading is about deriving meaning from print. Using comprehension strategies to make meaning is a skill that transfers across languages.
• Habits and attitudes about reading and writing. Students who are successful readers and writers in their first language and who have good study habits in that language are able to transfer these attitudes and habits to reading and writing in a second language. Seeing oneself as a literate person and a successful student transfers across languages. This does not need explicit teaching in a second language.
• Higher level thinking and metacognitive skills and strategies. These skills transfer across languages: All good readers possess the skills of skimming, paraphrasing, summarizing, and predicting, using dictionaries and other resources, and note-taking.
• Content knowledge. Knowledge transfers across languages: Content mastered in one language transfers to a second language.

Language-specific issues that have to be explicitly taught:
Grammar and orthographic features. Each language has its own grammatical system and spelling system.

Words. Vocabulary is language-specific and must be taught in each language, although in the case of related languages, such as Spanish and English, transfer can be facilitated through explicit instruction in cognates and common roots and affixes across English and Spanish.

Cultural schema. These are cultural assumptions, values, and themes that are embedded in each language and culture. All literature is culturally based; however, the cultural values embedded in a text are language specific and do not transfer from one language to another. Therefore teachers explicitly teach the cultural schema that students need in order to successfully interact with text that is written in their second language.

Story structure and rhetorical devices. Consequently, teachers help students learn that story structures and rhetorical devices may differ across languages. These differences need to be explicitly taught.

Helpful resources on this topic include Language Transfer (Odlin, 1989) and Learner English: A teachers' guide to interference and other problems (2nd ed.) (Swan & Smith, 2001). Both discuss transfer issues related to a variety of languages

Q. What literacy skills are taught through the content areas and what are taught through language arts lessons?

A. Literacy skills are taught through both the content areas and language arts lessons. Explicit language arts instruction through both languages is an essential component of immersion instruction. Thematic content area units involve having students read a variety of both fiction and nonfiction material at a variety of reading levels. Literacy skills are taught through focused mini-lessons, readings, and writing projects throughout the unit. In particular, content-specific vocabulary, rhetorical structures, and skills (such as using glossaries, looking for sub-headings as a way of finding information, reading table of contents, skimming, etc.) lend themselves to instruction through the content areas.

Q: Does Immersion work?

A: Yes! Research conducted over the past 40 years shows that students enrolled in Immersion programs (regardless of the language) do not only achieve a high level of proficiency in languages, but also excel in other academic subjects.