Thread: TX-School district offers Spanish immersion up to 7th grade

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School district offers Spanish immersion up to 7th grade

05:41 PM CDT on Saturday, September 6, 2008

By JEFF BRADY / WFAA-TV



Jeff Brady reports
September 5, 2008
Kids in school today will have to compete for jobs in a global economy unlike their parents ever faced.

To better prepare them, the HEB school district has launched a unique 'schools of choice' curriculum, including a somewhat controversial program of Spanish language immersion.

All Spanish; all the time.

Critics complain that Spanish comprehension's not part of any standardized test.

Still, the program's results speak for themselves - en espanol.

Children are learning a language the fun way, before aptitudes and attitudes make it hard.

A class of first-grade English-speaking kids - taught completely in Spanish.

All day, for almost every subject.

"I see a lot of growth, and I see a lot of desire to learn and desire not only to learn, but also to love other cultures," said first grade teacher Ana Rich.

It's a unique and voluntary Spanish-language immersion program at Bedford Heights Elementary for children whose parents want them to become bilingual.

The goal here is not necessarily fluency by the sixth grade, but confidence in a second language, to prepare these kids for a global marketplace as adults, and a global job market.

"Candidly, every child in Texas ought to be required to take Spanish," said superintendent, Gene Buinger.

Buinger pushed the program forward eight years ago when his board asked him to consider a more in-depth language curriculum.

"Forty two percent of our kids are low-income in this district. This is not a gilded ghetto by a long shot."

He says most American school districts graduate students who are woefully ill-prepared for the world they will face and foreign language skills are a prime example.

"After having been to China twice, I think we have maybe five years to turn things around and get serious," he said.

He is serious.

Kids in his district can take Spanish immersion through the sixth grade, as well as Mandarin and Hindi languages, plus, the Suzuki strings program, which is an intense music curriculum starting in the first grade unique in public schools.

"The kids are amazing. They can do so much," said music teacher Susan Pugh.

Back at Bedford Heights, fourth graders do more advanced work in Spanish.

They are free to drop out at any time but most don't.

"It gets a little harder, but I know more Spanish each year," said immersion student, Macy Scruggs.

The Spanish teaching tapers down as the students grow up.

By the seventh grade, these kids will have only one core class taught in Spanish, the rest in English.

Some research shows that language study makes students better over-all learners and so far, faculty says the TAKS tests seem to confirm it.

"Those children have done just as well or better than the students that are in the non-immersion classrooms," said Brad Menwasser.

Joy Keohane is a school nurse who has three kids in the Spanish immersion program, and she has no doubts about the benefits.

"It forces your brain to connect different neurons and they actually do better on standardized tests when they have been immersed in another language, she said.

In fact, her kids sometimes use their "palabras" to bypass mom and dad.

"They've done that in the car with friends, sometimes they don't want us to know what they're saying," Keohane said.

Bi-lingual immersion teachers must be native Spanish speakers and get paid $3,000 extra to bring their language and culture to class.

"So it's an awareness at this elementary level, and awareness that we are a world village, a world community," said Juan Figueroa, a fifth grade teacher.

Preparing for a world community, by studying its languages and learning to speak them from day one of class.

"I believe it gives them a substantial edge," Buinger said.

E-mail jbrady@wfaa.com.


http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/w ... 9e5ff.html

So, it is important to learn SPANISH to get ahead in the world when the rest of the world is learning ENGLISH. Why not Russian or French or German? Why is it only Spanish that will give you that edge?

Originally Posted by agrneydgrl

So, it is important to learn SPANISH to get ahead in the world when the rest of the world is learning ENGLISH. Why not Russian or French or German? Why is it only Spanish that will give you that edge?

IMO...Because we have 20 million illegal invaders who live in this country and who either will not or cannot speak English. Rather than offended them (or mexico) our leaders and school districts would rather dumb down the curriculum and politely suggest (at the moment it's not mandatory) our kids perhaps speak spanish.

It seems the ILLEGALS have won it at least one Texas School District, the ILLEGALS and their Anchor Babies are unable to learn or most likely refuse to learn English so the children of United States Citizens are forced to learn spanish to continue the "cheap labor" for the ELITISTS!

The ILLEGALS and their Anchor Babies in the Texas School System are so illiterate that “ourâ€

What a total waste of time! Instead of concentrating on English, Science & Math; they are being force fed a foreign language? HOW will this help them in the business world?

We are NOT a "global" village and spanish is NOT a "global" business language, for cripes sake! The major GLOBAL business languages are English, French and Chinese. Spanish will get you nowhere in the rest of the world.

This is accelerating the dumbing down of American school children!

You realize Bedford High School produced one hit wonder Vanilla Ice.



Ice, Ice Baby.

Now they are producing Spanish speakers! Bedford is a very nice community but the city council is pro-illegal alien.

So there you have it folks, the birth of a sanctuary.

Dixie

In case some of you may not realize, this insanity is commonplace. The Richmond, VA public school system announced last year that their goal is to have all graduates be bi-lingual (i.e spanish, since that is the only language offered) by 2012.

My wife and I plan to have children soon and in preparation for the future, I examined the curriculum at the local elementary school. Spanish is a mandatory part of the curriculum from K-up. In addition there has been an immersion class added as of this school year. Also, the surrounding counties of Chesterfield and Henrico are planning to follow suit in the near future, although they plan to offer German and Chinese at a couple of schools.

My wife is latina and we plan for our children to know enough spanish to speak to her family members in their country, and we all plan to learn Chinese, but I definitely do not see the value of our tax dollars being used to educate our children in a foreign language. The Richmond Public schools perform miserably in the statewide ratings and I do not understand how heaping such a nonsensical requirement on already overburdened teachers can help. It is clearly pandering to the NEA and other liberal cretins. Parents as a unit need to storm the offices of the school board and demand this lunacy be aborted.
Those who want to learn a foreign language have ample opportunity to do so, but such a thing should never be forced on a people.

I agree with Miguelina, if these school systems cared about our children being able to compete, they would teach them a useful international language such as Chinese, German, French. How is knowing spanish going to enrich the lives of American children? It certainly has not done much for the economic opportunities of those fleeing Latin America.

Nuff Said

This is because Spainsh is being implemented into curriculums under the guise of being a 'global language' of opportunity. In actuality, nothing could be further from the truth! It's being forced upon children because we have a segement of this society who either refuses to, or cannot speak English.

Our PC society now believes it's rude and impolite to demand those who come to this country speak English. So we simply change the rules and now require our kids to adapt to them. Ironically, it's only one segment of newcomers that we bend over backwards for. Sadly, many of those may not even be legal newcomers!

If this was about creating "global opportunities' for children, they would be required to learn, as has already been stated, Chinese, German, or perhaps French.

It seems to me that the ILLEGALS and their "home" countries would support their ILLEGALS and Anchor Babies learning English, it would certainly assist in their efforts to "sponge off" United States Citizens!!!!!

It's a unique and voluntary Spanish-language immersion program at Bedford Heights Elementary for children whose parents want them to become bilingual.

This program is SHOVING Spanish down our children's throats whether we want it or not. It is "voluntary" for now, but believe me it will be mandatory real soon. Parents wont have much choice because they dont want other kids to be ahead of them on anything, including Spanish. So, WITHOUT MUCH CHOICE, they have to go along with the program for their kids sake.