Learning Español at the Neighborhood School

iHola!

Our students are very fortunate to have Spanish as part of their foreign language school curriculum. It has been wonderful to see all the progress that they have made. Children have been enthusiastically listening to a lot of Spanish, since this is necessary in the beginning stages of language acquisition.
The long term goal is communication. Other goals are appreciating other cultures and the value of communicating in another language and motivating them to pursue a language study. Learning occurs in meaningful contexts that are significant for the students, such as social and cultural situations.
Their comprehension and vocabulary are increasing while they learn songs, rhymes, read the class news in Espanol, find the date on the calendar, tell the weather, listen to the story books that are familiar to them, make books and play games such as counting or vocabulary games, "Simon Dice" (Simon Says) and pantomime. Through these games children are engaged in learning language and they demonstrate comprehension through their actions. Later on students will participate orally by answering simple yes/no questions then by making choices and finally answering open-ended statements. Children in the upper grades can participate in brief conversations over familiar topics using simple sentences. They are able to read and write simple sentences in Spanish.

Children are learning basic expressions that help them get by in class every day, for example, how to ask for permission to go to the bathroom and for a drink of water in Spanish, " ¿Puedo tomar agua?", "¿Puedo ir al bano?", How are you? "¿Como estas?" and many more.

Learning another language enhances a child's English ability!