Saturday, August 8, 2009

Dual-Language School, Aquí Vienen!

In September, my 3 girls will be off to school-FULL TIME. This is an exciting year for our family because the twins will be starting kindergarten, and now all of them will be in a dual language school.

My eldest daughter will be entering 2nd grade and she'll be continuing the bilingual model of one day English, next day Spanish.

The kindergarten classes operate differently. As of last year, the school day is conducted in English with a portion of day in Spanish with a Spanish teacher. I had spoken with the dual language coordinator who said they're thinking about changing the model to 90/10 - Spanish/English. I told her that I am for that because I do believe immersion is the way to go.

So, I will find out later this month how the K class will be handled.

As an aside:

Even though I believe immersion is the way to go, it was a challenge for my family to do that totally for even 30 minutes. And immersion schools were out of the question because of the cost. That's why I sought other ways to create a bilingual environment in our home. And I'm proud to say that everything we've done and are doing at home have been good for the girls and my son: they embrace Spanish, they're familiar with the language, they question how to say words in Spanish, and they have fun with it.

If you like to learn more about what I've done with my children so that you can do it too with yours, visit www.ourspanishlessonplansonline.com

¡Hasta pronto!

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