Question about Spanish/Eng. immersion...a friend's child

[DianeW88]

One of our local charters is a Spanish/English immersion elementary school. The children are taught half their day in English and half in Spanish (with native speakers who do not speak English...they are coming on a teacher exchange program with other Spanish speaking countries for this purpose, and the school doesn't want the Spanish teachers using English at all with the students, so it helps if they can't speak it).

 

The subjects for the English speaking part of the day are: English (duh), reading and writing.

 

The subjects taught in Spanish only are math, science, and other electives. Math and science are never taught in English at all during the students' K-6 elementary school career.

 

My friend has a son she has decided to place in their program (you must start in kindergarten), but now she is having second thoughts. Her main concerns are that the two subjects American public school students consistenly perform below par in, are the ones that will not be taught in her son's native language. She asked me what I thought about it. I honestly don't know right off the top of my head, but I said that I knew A LOT of homeschooling women who would give me an opinion if I asked. :lol:

 

So what says the Hive? A good idea or not?

[TXBeth]

Hmmmm......the school I was considering for DD does Math and Language Arts in English, and Science and Social Studies in Spanish. I think it sounds great. But I'm not sure about having math in Spanish. If they miss science and social studies concepts while they are figuring out the language, it really doesn't matter - I mean, it's all covered again later anyway. But if you miss out on foundational math concepts while you try to learn the language, that could set up major problems down the road. I don't think I'd do it.

[linguistmama]

Does she know if there will be homework? If the math homework is some drill review it might be obvious how to complete it and she could discuss it with her child in English. Not teaching those subjects in English at all would not appeal to me either. Is she interested in afterschooling? :)

[Carol in Cal.]

We have a similar program here, and it was attractive to me EXCEPT that all parents volunteering in the classroom had to speak Spanish, and I can't.

[Rosie_0801]

It seems a bit weird, doesn't it? Why isn't Spanish being taught as a subject, with writing, literature and whatnot?

 

If I wanted to put my child in such a program, I'd be afterschooling maths, for sure, to make sure the kiddo learned it in English too. I wouldn't care about the lack of science and social studies in primary school, but that's because the schools here barely teach those subjects anyway; and afterschooling those subjects would happen in this house no matter what schooling options we pursued because we like that sort of thing.

 

I wouldn't like science being taught solely in Spanish in high school, but high school is years away and the lad would be enrolled in a different school by then. For primary school, science and social studies could be covered very nicely via a weekly trip to the library and some nature study.

 

Rosie

Edited August 8, 2011 by Rosie_0801

[bettyandbob]

We have a neighborhood public school that has this as an option. Half day English, half day Spanish with the same division in subjects.

 

To prep for state mandated testing the students are given homework in English for those subjects being tested. Students are also given a large English language math packet to do in the summer, every summer break. The school has a significant low income population as a result of the neighborhood -- it's a magnet program, but neighborhood children are automatically in. Yet with it's low income population, the school is not having trouble meeting it's requirements for passing mandated testing. There is at least one elementary in the area that is failing, but not this one.

 

I have not met anyone who was unhappy with the program except for a family whose child turned out to have a severe LD. The mother told me she thought it was a good program, but it was not the right thing for her child with the LD. I have not heard anyone complain that doing this program made any child unprepared for a rigorous course of study in high school. If I could go back 11 years and get my dc in, I would probably do it (at least for one of them).

[Melinda in VT]

It would concern me enough that I would ask the schools how graduating students transition to middle school and high school math, if the program has been around long enough to tell. I would also ask what the school is doing to help students make that transition. The ideas that the previous poster mentioned seem good.

 

But yes, I would probably go ahead and send my child. My youngest is bilingual in terms of comprehension, but not in terms of speaking, and I would love to put him in an environment every day where he had to speak Spanish.