Our son’s elementary school offers Spanish immersion and I was just curious about what people’s opinions are about it, whether or not anyone here has done it, what is your initial reaction to it, etc. Here’s the way it works. We have the option to enroll him either in preschool (as a 4 year old) or Kindergarten (5 or 6 year olds, but the younger the better) Spanish immersion. He would be taught completely, 100% in Spanish by a native Spanish speaking teacher. Preschool is half day, every day. Kindergarten I believe is all day every day although they may be adding more options there (this is the first year and it may be changed according to demand).
We have a while to decide, my oldest son started 1st grade at that school this year in the traditional English system (you can only start immersion as a preschooler or Kindergartener, 1st grade is considered too late for immersion I guess, although he is getting Spanish classes twice a week). My youngest would be eligible to enroll in the Spanish preschool in the fall of 2012.
I have done some reseach and will be watching with interest how other kids fare in the first few years of this program. There are 2 other schools in our area that also offer this type of immersion and it seems to be in very high demand (there is a lottery to get in.) They are taught completely in Spanish until 4th grade, then it starts to taper off until they are taught in English again with continuing Spanish refresher classes. They are taught English grammar and such I believe starting in 2nd grade (they want to make sure the kids learn Spanish first, and learn to read in Spanish first.) Studies show kids are fluent in Spanish by 4th grade.
Has anyone done this? I am intrigued and I think it could be a great opportunity for my son to learn another language in a more natural way. The leaders who set up the program say that kids will be behind in reading and English at first, but by 3rd-4th grade they will catch up and often surpass their traditional counterparts. Evidence from these schools seems to support that they test just as well or even better than their traditional counterparts by 5th grade.
I do wonder a few things, like how I will be able to help him with homework and such, and how much I will understand about what he is learning. (I do know basic Spanish from high school/college classes, but I will guess he will surpass me by about 1st grade ) My husband doesn’t know any Spanish. We could take some classes too though, which might be fun.
I am getting some very mixed opinions from people I bring this up with, and just was curious what people here think about this.
Well, it does if you expect your child to spend a large portion of their life speaking Spanish: Spanish immersion would likely have more utility here in San Antonio than it would in Tokyo (though I have a number of Hispanics working with me that don’t speak Spanish at all).
As for me, I would be more upset about my kid being behind in English than I would be thrilled with their fluency in Spanish, especially in the early years.
I would do it in a heartbeat. I know a respectable amount of spanish that I don’t worry about being able to help them, I am reasonably sure that if English is spoken at home my child would not fall behind in English, being fluent in Spanish and English would give my child a good grounding of grammar and syntax in both languages, it would be a marketable skill in many parts of the US and it would make it easier for the child to learn more languages.
I was in French Immersion in 7th grade when I lived in Montreal. It was one of the best experiences of my life, although I didn’t realize it at the time. It was a difficult year, but I went from barely speaking any French to almost fluent.
I think that would be the hardest part, to have a 1st or 2nd grader who can’t read in English. We would just have to be in it for the long term benefits…but I do think I would worry that my kid would be the one who never caught up in English, despite what the statistics say.
There are pockets of Spanish speakers in our area. Although to me the main benefit isn’t so much that he can converse with local people, although that would be good also, as it is that learning another language, any language, is supposed to have positive effects on the brain and learning other things. We were also told that kids who know 2 languages early on have a much easier time learning more languages later (so often kids will pick up a 3rd language in high school / college.)
I really think it depends on your child and his or her age. I think it’s a great opportunity, but I do see the following cons.
Many children, mine included, react to change, especially stressful change, by misbehaving. So you could expect increased tantrums, crying, refusal to go to school, etc.
Your kid will probably be exhausted short term when they get back from school.
Learning a language is easier for kids than adults, but even so, it’s not an overnight thing. As long as the teacher is very interactive, that shouldn’t be a problem. But if she’s not and just talks at the kids, he could be bored until he catches onto the language.
For what it’s worth, I lived in South America for a couple of years. I thought I spoke Spanish before I got there. When I arrived and for the first three weeks, it was one of the most stressful experiences of my life because I realized that I had no clue how to speak Spanish. Still, I got over it, as I’m sure your child would, and eventually became almost fluent. But it’s probably easier as an adult to adapt to things like that than it is for a little kid. Just my take, though.
A good friend of mine who lives in San Francisco has her daughter in a Spanish immersion school. She started in Kinder or first grade, I don’t recall which. She’s in 7th grade now and perfectly fluent. She moves smoothly from speaking Spanish with one person to speaking English with another.
It helps that her mother is also fluent, but she learned as an adult, I think. They speak either language at home.
I don’t have any children, but if I did, I’d sign them up. It’ll probably be frustrating for your son at first, but it’ll be worth it in the end for the marketability and enhanced language skills later in life.
I had a similar immersion experience, except I was coming from a non-English speaking country and enrolled in a US school, starting in kindergarten. It’s a different experience than having a foreign-language immersion where presumably, most of the kids are in the same position, but the concept is similar.
I don’t remember being frustrated, although I was a very easy-going kid, but I do remember going through the motions with everyone else without having a clue what I was supposed to be doing. Since I was working out the different languages in my head, I was often pretty spacey as a kid and as a result, was a little slow to learn new concepts.
There’s some definite drawbacks. I didn’t learn to read in ANY language until I was about 6 or 7, but once I did, I caught up very fast. This also hindered some of my math and science skills up until 3rd grade or so. I eventually caught up in those aspects as well, but it did worry my parents for a few years.
If you do sign up your kid for the immersion, relax, don’t worry about him being behind where your older son was at that age for the first few years since he’ll eventually catch up. However, if you want to work with him on his English skills at home, you can always do more family reading time where you read to him in English and he can read to you in Spanish.
And heck yes, I would do it. Would give him a few advantages later on in life if your kid decided to stick with it, and it definitely improves other areas of studies. I can’t begin to explain how the four years of Spanish in high school helped me and wished that it would’ve been an option to start sooner.
If I lived in a country or a community where I could expect to encounter a lot of Spanish, I would, in a heartbeat. Unless the kid really couldn’t handle it. It is one of my great regrets that I didn’t get comparative immersion (in French) when I was a kid.
There are so many advantages to knowing a second language–everything from greater mental flexibility to being able to talk to more and different groups of one’s neighbours to being able to negotiate and find one’s way better in tourist situations…
Well, west Michigan has a lot of Spanish speakers (migrants and the over-stayers especially). And the Spanish-speaking language growth in the USA could mean that it won’t be long before it’s the majority language.
I’d do it in a heartbeat. So your child isn’t reading at the same English level as other kids - isn’t it Finland where they don’t teach them how to read at all until age 7? They catch up just fine. As long as he hits high school with the same abilities as the other students I don’t see the problem at all.
Living in Montreal, I sent all three of my kids in french immersion and it worked quite well. English was not introduced until the third grade (so they had three years, K, 1, 2, of total immersion. Then they had increasing amounts of English until in HS it was probably 2/3 English. They did extremely well on both English and French proficiency tests. Let me emphasize that the latter were the same tests that kids in French HS took. At the end of HS they were very fluent.
But they all moved to the states and have been living there since. Their French fluency has, sadly, declined. But that’s inevitable. My colleague who left Germany at age 16 in 1939 just doesn’t feel particularly comfortable speaking German any more.
I’ll tell you the same thing I told my SiL when she was thinking of taking The Kidlet to a school offering English immersion:
eventually, either for high school or university, The Kidlet will move on and have classes in our language. Will being able to do math in a foreign language do him any good then, or will it slow him down? And, how do you know that the teachers speak that foreign language correctly, or that they teach the actual subjects correctly in that language? Will you be able to help your kid with homework in a language you don’t speak so well yourself?
(FTR, I happen to know that many of the teachers in that immersion school speak English with an aksent that would curl paint and butcher grammar three different ways in a two-word sentence - I wasn’t going to try and explain this to SiL, but it was my reason to jump in. The Kidlet is attending a school which has partial English instruction starting in pre-K, he’s learning math in both languages)
If I was in the US and could sign my kid up for Spanish immersion, I would consider it but still make my decision based on which school offered the best teachers and program. I wouldn’t do the same for German immersion, because I wouldn’t be able to help my kid with homework in German.
) My husband doesn’t know any Spanish. We could take some classes too though, which might be fun.