Thread: Spanish in public school

I periodically teach art classes on "art day" in elementary schools here in southern California. At the school that I was sent to today I was horrified to discover that in one of the 2nd grade classes, only Spanish was being spoken. ALL of the textbooks, calenders, breaktime reading materials, handwritten messages on the chalkboard were all in Spanish. The teacher in this public school was speaking only Spanish to the kids. I tried to tactfully ask about this and she indicated that this was the classroom for kids who only speak Spanish to gradually being introduced to English. Seeing no hint of English anywhere in the room I asked how they were learning English and she said "oh we have a special English speaking time at the end of the day". This time turns out to be a whole 20 minutes of English. But in reality this was a classroom full of 8 yr olds who where getting their American education, paid for with my tax dollars in Spanish. These were such sweet kids that I could not teach adequately because everything I said had to be interpreted by their teacher into Spanish. I don't think these kids are being done any favors by making it easy to not have to learn English in school.

I feel your pain, savecalifornia.

This is not uncommon. My oldest daughter was in high school and even they they had a class for the teens who only spoke Spanish!!

I talked with the school counselor, wondering why they were in high school and not learning English, and he said they just had not and the school needed to be patient with them!

My highschool has special ESOL classes all in spanish.... Then the other ESOL classes are in english. Why do they do this in schools? Also, why do they get credit for taking spanish class when they only speak spanish. Sorry but I don't think Spanish should be a "second language" class anymore.