El 30 de agosto de 2018 / Hola a los padres de los estudiantes de la escuela de San Giles…
Hello, parents of students at Saint Giles…
I wanted to thank those of you who were able to stop by the Spanish classroom during Curriculum night (room 202 – Frawley building). I’m excited to be a part of such a warm and welcoming community! To answer some of the questions I received, I can provide the following information.
Spanish meets as follows: K-3rd grade (once/week), 4th and 5th grade (twice/week) and 6th-8th grade (3x/week). I’ve spent the first few classes getting to know your sons and daughters and finding out about their levels of Spanish. Students are placed according to grade rather than level of linguistic ability. Although there are mixed abilities within this academic setting, I foresee being able to differentiate learning for students as we move forward.
The goal will be for students to learn conjugation during junior high school and become familiar with different verb tenses by 8th grade. Students in the lower grades learn to communicate orally, and the written word is gradually introduced. By graduation, students will have seen a variety of text types (songs, articles, informational texts, poems, etc.). Although we are not able to offer full immersion at St. Giles for grades K-8, all students should benefit from the instruction, regardless of level.
You can help make the process of learning a second language more attractive to your child by asking him/her to talk about what he/she has learned in Spanish class. While you may hear tales of singing songs, playing jeopardy, watching videos, acting in a skit, you can rest assured that there will be a very academic and structured side to learning in addition to the entertainment. I am very interested in students enjoying the subject so that they will continue to pursue language-learning as a life-long venture.
Please do email me your questions, comments, and suggestions as we work towards planning a comprehensive Spanish language program for both speakers of Spanish as a second (or foreign) language and heritage speakers of Spanish (i.e. students who have been exposed to Spanish at home).
Best regards,
Deborah Holman
dholman@stgilesschool.org