My name is Marisa and I will be the 6th grade middle school Spanish language teacher in our first year of middle school in Oakland, CA. These students are coming up from kinder in a 90/10 program that has reached 50/50 language ability. I am wondering if you know where I might find Spanish language anchor texts I can use to model both excellent as well as inaccurate Spanish language writing at the beginning of the year? I believe it is very important for students to see what is expected of them at the beginning of the year, so they will push themselves to meet their writing goals. Can you help direct me to some excellent resources? I click on a lot of links that no longer exist, or that have technical issues. Gracias!

Marisa Villegas
mariazteca13@gmail.com

Thank you for your questions. Actually, I answered a post above that addresses the 90/10 – 50/50 models so take a look at that and see if you find it helpful. I also posted a more detailed entry in my blog, so I have added the link below:

http://learningin2.blogspot.com/2013/07/dual-language-immersion-101.html

In response to the other questions you asked:

-In Kinder, all kids come from very diverse backgrounds whether English only households, or households where the target language is also spoken

-From 1 and above, USUALLY children enter the school by having SOME background in Spanish. It will be really-really hard for an EO to survive in a 3rd grade class where 70% of the time they are being taught in Spanish

-Ratio/it varies from school to school, but really mixed. You do have Caucasian, African American, and Hispanic children (as well as other races) in each classroom. It varies, but the optimal would be to have a great mixture.

Hope I was able to answer some questions….let me know if you have any more, I would be glad to help.

Kelly

Thank you for your questions. So, I will try my best to answer most of them:

1-Location of the program: This program is in Southern California (a K-8 dual language school/English-Spanish). There are quite a few programs in SoCal, this one in particular is located in Canoga Park (Multicultural Learning Center to be specific).

2-Structure: The school starts with a 90/10 in Kindergarten and moves up 10% each year. For example, in first grade, students are at a 80/20, in third grade 70/30, in fifth grade and above 50/50. In middle school, the subjects are not broken down into Science=Spanish, Math=English or so on. The subject are planned by units, so there may be a Science unit in Spanish and then a Science unit in English. Teachers take into account availability of resources, and other things….so this is highly variable. They aim; however, for a 50/50 balance overall.

If you have any other particular questions, I will be happy to shed some light.

Thank you,
Kelly