Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Spanish Immersion

Our school is considering a Spanish Immersion class beginning for DS5 in 1st grade next year. Teacher indicated DS is the only K kiddo at the school that she believes would be successful in a full immersion classroom. We are willing to consider this as it would add a learning dimension that would help DS not be so bored, but looking for feedback from anyone with experience or knowledge about how these work and the success rate for gifted kiddos.

I think that this could work very well for an HG+ student of this age.

We have friends whose solidly MG DD (of an age with my DD) came up through an immersion program like this-- starting in K, and the program fed into the local junior high and naturally ended at the conclusion of elementary. She is now a HS freshman and is doing well, though there were some delays in literacy when she was K-3. On the one hand, that might be bad news for non-GT students, but in terms of HG+ ones, I can only see how that would be awesome. Really ideal in terms of going "sideways" rather than accelerating, if you see what I mean.

Oh, and after five years in the immersion environment, she is pretty much fluent in the other language, too. WAY cool.

As with most things school related - it really depends.

I'm in Canada so French immersion (FI) is big up here (although the popularity varies from region to region).

I grew up out west in a city where French isn't very common. The people I grew up with that did FI there loved it. In general families with struggling students either pull their kids from FI or don't sign up in the first place so the classes tend to have a higher concentration of smart, studious kids. I don't know if the people I know would be considered gifted but I'd guess at least MG. I do know a couple of them had a bit of a challenge in first year Engineering since all of the physics/chem/math terms they knew were in French but many schools now keep the maths and sciences in English to avoid that. Overall the FI schools acted sort of like bright/gifted magnet schools in a city that didn't have any gifted programming at the time.

I now live in Ottawa where French is a bigger deal (higher up Government jobs require French and it is an asset for many other jobs). All of the public schools are FI at least for the first couple years and then eventually you can opt out (down to 25% French I believe). Once the kids are old enough to choose then you get the effect that the weaker students opt out but there are a lot more kids here that stick with it so it isn't the same as out west. One potential downside to FI is that for gifted kids that are the type that want to dive deep into topics the language limitations can be frustrating (or at least that is often mentioned on gifted boards up here). In our case my kids are both obsessed with math/science which are in English so I can't say if they would be less boring than if they were in French where at least the language would add a bit of challenge. My DS7 isn't a fan of French (he has a LD in processing speed so maybe that makes it harder for him to pick it up???). He is definitely the type to drill deep on subjects and I suspect having science in French would make him more frustrated but it is hard to say. My DD5 LOVES it. She is constantly singing in French and will pretend to speak it all of the time. Last night we played a whole game of Battleship in French just because she wanted to. It is really quite funny because she just makes up French sounding words to fill in whatever she doesn't know (she has a great accent so it sounds almost convincing). Another consideration is that it can be challenging to help with homework as they get older (assuming you don't speak Spanish). My kids are young but I have friends with older kids who have often called upon our Francophone friends for help. On the plus side, it makes it more likely that the kids are doing the work rather than over-involved parents

All three of mine attended a French immersion school starting in Pre-K. Eldest went through 4th grade, middle through 2nd and youngest through 3rd. I think it was a good experience for all of them. Older two have been IDed as gifted, but not the youngest (haven't looked into that yet - she is only in 4th).

For kids that might be bored by the regular classroom, I think language immersion helps. I think it also makes learning another language easier later on (eldest took German, middle takes Spanish), and it helps with English vocab too (for SATs). Eldest is taking a junior level French course at college now (she is a freshman) and finds it easy - immersion certainly helped.

They had French immersion at a private school. I'm not sure how well the area public immersion programs worked (and I say that in the past tense because I don't think there are any around here anymore). Our district did not have one.

I am curious about your program. If your DS is the only K kid going into the program, how does that work?

I am curious about what your school is actually proposing - I'm not sure if what your school is suggesting is what many of us here think of as an immersion program (half-day/half-subjects taught in one language, half-day/other-half-subjects taught in second language), or if they are suggesting is something like an hour-long class that is taught via immersion?

I also am not really sure why the school thinks only an exceptionally gifted child would be able to "handle" an immersion class? I've known kids all over the IQ spectrum who've been instructed in foreign languages (typically an immersive-type approach) starting at very young ages, some as early as toddlers, and young children often do really well with immersive instruction. FWIW our school district offers immersion programs which require children start in the program in kindergarten, and there is no IQ/ability requirement for admission.

My gut feeling is to take the offer, but I would really like to understand a little bit more about what they are actually offering.

polarbear

The school is looking for 24 kids for the SI program...his teacher wasn't supportive for kids other than our son...she's been close minded about other things so I'm researching to develop my own opinion.

The school is suggesting full day immersion for 1st and 2nd and then half day immersion half day english for 3rd, 4th and 5th. The idea is completely new to me, but I'm beginning to see it as a possible solution to our schooling concerns.

One thing with immersion programs is that they generally don't have many entrance points. I'm guessing in your case you'll have to decide in grade one and likely wouldn't be able to opt in at any other point. With that in mind I'd be more likely to at least start it and see. You can always go back to English at any point if it isn't working out. He might be a bit behind after a couple years of full immersion but for most gifted kids that can quickly be caught up if needed.

I was also thinking about it a bit more and even if we had had a
choice we likely would have started in immersion. I grew up in a neighborhood where many kids spoke at least 2 languages and I now work in a very multicultural environment. I never really thought anything of it until I was backpacking around Europe with a bunch of people from various countries, many of whom were having a hard time adjusting to being surrounded by foreign languages. For me it wasn't a big shock, it was just like any day growing up (although I admit I find it more challenging being in countries that are based on different alphabets so I can definitely empathize).

How much of a solution it will ultimately be will depend on the teacher and the make up of the other 24 kids as well as your child's excitement about learning the language. I know for my daughter it is working really well. Learning French is something that we can't do as well at home as they can do at school and it is giving her something special to learn at school.

English is the quasi-official language of the U.S. and has effectively become the international language of educated people, so I don't see the point of immersion in a language other than English. English language immersion could make sense for children in non-English-speaking countries.

Academically, immersion in a foreign language is not a free lunch. Quoting Steve Sailer quoting the NYT:

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2010/08/upscale-bilingual-education.html
Upscale bilingual education
by Steve Sailer
August 18, 2010

'Ms. Bialystok’s research shows that bilingual children tend to have smaller vocabularies in English than their monolingual counterparts, and that the limited vocabulary tends to be words used at home (spatula and squash) rather than words used at school (astronaut, rectangle). The measurement of vocabulary is always in one language: a bilingual child’s collective vocabulary from both languages will probably be larger.

“Bilingualism carries a cost, and the cost is rapid access to words,” Ms. Bialystok said. In other words, children have to work harder to access the right word in the right language, which can slow them down — by milliseconds, but slower nonetheless.

At the same time, bilingual children do better at complex tasks like isolating information presented in confusing ways. In one test researchers frequently use, words like “red” and “green” flash across a screen, but the words actually appear in purple and yellow.

Bilingual children are faster at identifying what color the word is written in, a fact researchers attribute to a more developed prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for executive decision-making, like which language to use with certain people)....

One arena in which being bilingual does not seem to help is the highly competitive kindergarten admission process.

“It doesn’t give you a leg up on the admissions process,” said Victoria Goldman, author of the sixth edition of “The Manhattan Family Guide to Private Schools.” It is one piece of the bigger puzzle, which includes tests scores, interviews and the ability of a child to follow directions. “Speaking another language is indicative that you are verbal, but you have to be behaved.”

George P. Davison, head of school at Grace Church School, a competitive downtown school, said that bilingualism tended to suppress verbal and reading comprehension test scores by 20 to 30 percent for children younger than 12. “If anything, it can have a negative effect on admissions,” he said.'

I am kind of amused that people would consider an immersion program appropriate only for HG+ kids, when immigrant kids at all levels of abilities are thrown into the water with often limited support and expected to figure it out.

I am a non-native English speaker who immigrated to the US over a decade ago. I don't speak English at home, and neither do my US-born, non-HG kids (at least not within my hearing!). They started formal schooling in K in a well-established Spanish immersion program. Juggling academics in three languages can be hard to balance, but they are coming along rather well, considering their other challenges.

Our district does not have IQ requirements for entrance in K/1st (after that the only kids who can join the program are those coming from other immersion programs who can show they are bilingual and biliterate at grade level). They do have a language assessment to make sure the candidates are on track for language development in one of the two target languages.

For the OP, since the program is new and you won't be able to see it in action the questions to ask are:

1) How will the instruction be structured? 50-50? 70-30? 90-10? Spanish should always be at least 50%, although you also want to make sure consideration is given to transitioning out to... whatever comes next.

2) How are the kids selected? A program which is not 50-50 (50% English speakers, 50% Spanish speakers, with native bilinguals counting on both sides) will have a harder time keeping the immersion working outside of the classroom, weakening the program.

3) How are the teachers selected? You want teachers who are natively bilingual, or a teaching team with a native speaker for each target language. Finding those teachers can be difficult.

You need a good talk with the people designing the program, not with a teacher who clearly doesn't understand how immersion works.

Somebody made (and edited?) the point that since any child who is floundering in a public immersion program has a good chance of being yanked out, there is attrition and the classes tend to concentrate higher achieving students. That has proven true, in our experience.

And yes, there is a hit to literacy achievement (there are only so many hours in the day you can spend reading/working) in the early grades. Having crunched the NCLB test stats for our district recently, they catch up by 3rd grade. But that means that this is not a one year decision. You need to be able to commit to at least six (K-5) years of immersion.

I won't touch Bostonian's article with a 10 foot pole, because the wrongness, it burns :P But yeah, if your goal is the hamster wheel of NYC private school admissions you probably want to avoid the Spanish immersion program, and concentrate on.. test prep?

Even if you are not, my broader point is that English proficiency is much more important than Spanish proficiency in the U.S., so I would be willing to trade very little of the former for the latter.