Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Spanish Immersion

Something I have always wondered when people use immersion programmes to challenge gifted kids. If the child is bored with a maths concept well below their level, how is asking then to solve it and explain their working in a language they are less proficient in help? Wouldn't it just increase thefrustration?

My kid's program is language arts, reading, science in English and then language arts, reading and social studies in Spanish and then the Spanish teacher initially teaches math in English but also goes over it in Spanish. The math materials are in English but are available in Spanish too.

It's very easy to "imagine why one wouldn't try such a program with a HG+ kid". If they aren't particularly strong in languages, then it just strews obstacles in their path.

And parenting a child (especially a gifted child) is all about making their life easier?

For us multilingualism isn't a choice, but come on, millions of kids in the world, most of which are not gifted, manage two or more languages just fine. You don't have to be "particularly strong in languages" to manage it. Learning through immersion is the closest you can get to first language acquisition. Most human brains are wired for it as part of the standard package.

An important trait of giftedness is that the child is especially good at a certain thing. PG/HG kids have high rate of knowledge acquisition - so they can handle immersion programs easily. But, placing a HG/PG kid in an immersion program does not make sense all the time.
Which is why I too would not call immersion programs a total win - how does a STEM oriented PG/HG kid get acceleration when these subjects get taught at the "normal rates/level" in another language? What is the value addition of an immersion program for an accelerated History buff or a Computer Programmer? And what do the immersion students do for enrichment in their areas of strength which are non-language related? (I am thinking about enrichment clubs, contests - Destination Imagination type of contests, online programs, afterschool classes etc in math, science etc) And when do they transition to "mainstream" schools - after 5th or 8th grades? What is the transition plan, if there is one at all?

I think that if the gifted child is not strong in languages, then an immersion program introduces "busy-ness" into their school work rather than teaching them what they need at a higher level. This could make some parents happy because it might challenge their gifted kid to a certain extent and that is a lot better than no challenge at all. That is not a compelling enough reason.
But, if the family has ties or business interests in regions from which the immersion language comes from, then immersion programs are a good fit even if the gifted child is strong in non-language areas.

I think you're taking a narrow view of the points being made here. Overall, the biggest benefit is learning another language and learning about another culture in a way that mimics being inside it (during school, anyway).

As for your points about transitioning to all-English schools, I'm confused. All the French immersion schools around here (Northern CA, like you) all bilingual, not French-only (unless I've missed one?). They have to be, for a variety of obvious reasons, such as high school graduates wouldn't meet the admission requirements for UC and Cal State without classes in English and US History.

Plus, the K-8 schools all transition to 50% instruction time in English relatively early on. My DS's school (and others; maybe all of them?) teach math in both languages. PLUS, my DH did school in English and then moved to Europe as a young teenager. Math was the SOLE subject he had no trouble with because it's universal. Etc. So I'm confused about your claim that your niece and nephew had trouble with science and math because of French immersion. TBH, it doesn't make sense as presented (maybe you left something out?).

I agree with Val. All three of mine started in a French immersion school, and in the younger years, most of the instruction is in French. Most of the math was in French. They did not have any problems transitioning to the math in an English only school.

Their English language skills were fine too. While mine left the school in elementary, they had friends that went through middle school (the school ends with 8th grade). Those friends went to "English-only" high schools, and almost every one ended up at an Ivy or other elite school. of course, they were very bright kids, but the bilingual aspect did not seem to affect college admissions.

I agree with Val's post above this. My own children aren't in immersion programs (the programs here are filled via lottery and my kids didn't get in). However, I've known quite a few students who've gone through the programs K-12, and overall I'd say the whole concept is (imo) a good option for *any* child (HG or not).


The reality in our local schools is that the neighborhood schools do *not* teach accelerated STEM either in early-mid elementary (or even late elementary except in math). The students in our immersion elementary schools are eligible to take part in our accelerated math and pull-out gifted programs, so they don't miss out on any of that from being in the immersion program. I've also not heard (*ever*) a concern from our local parents that their children had difficulty moving directly into accelerated and gifted programming in middle and high school after going through the elementary immersion programs.


I have a relative who majored in history. She is particularly interested in one area of the world, and she specifically studied the language in that country (over and above what was required for her degree) because she felt it added to her understanding of the culture and it might help her in the future with career opportunities.

For a computer science major? I don't know that studying one of the less widely-used languages would buy anything in terms of career advancement, but then again, the immersion programs I'm aware of (Spanish, Chinese, etc in the US, French in Canada) all seem to be built around languages that are *widely* used in business around the globe. So it seems that it would potentially have a lot of future career value for whatever career a person is interested in ultimately.

And it's not all about future careers either. Learning a second language is *learning* - I see it as valuable whether or not you ever use it. For a lot of us, it's fun, and it's been fun for the kids I knew in the immersion schools. For me personally, learning French (the first "second" language I learned) helped me understand English grammar much better than any of my English classes had (I took my first French class in 7th grade).

And lastly I'll mention culture - our immersion schools don't just teach language, they teach culture. They have relationships with sister cities in other countries where the immersion langauge is the first language. Teachers in the programs are required to be native-speakers. In our full immersion programs, at least half the student body has to come from a family that speaks the immersion language at home as their primary language.

And... ok, I keep thinking of more things. Our immersion programs are choice programs here - no one student is in them because it's their neighborhood school - so the body of students participating has a much higher than average level of parents who are involved and care. No matter what the IQ level of the students involved, I've found that having parents invested in the school makes a huge difference in the program.

Those are all things that benefit *any* student, no matter what their future career choice.


They do the same clubs/activities as all the other kids in our district. This doesn't even make sense to me why this would be asked here? The after-school enrichment options are all dependent on volunteer teachers and students, not on language.


Our kids continue in their immersion "program" through 12th grade, but they are also in schools where they are mixed in for English-instruction classes with the non-immersion student body starting in middle school, so they have all options open to them re participating in honors classes etc.


I don't really think this is an issue. First, I suspect there are a lot of students (gifted and not) in immersion schools who are not "strong" in languages - the benefit of immersion is the way the language is taught (by immersion, and starting at a very young age) - which is said to be a more natural and easier way to learn a language. I also am somewhat of a mellow-gifted parent in that I have a kid, for example, who could have been studying college-level chemistry mid-way through elementary school. He didn't have that opportunity (even though he wasn't in an immersion program lol)... so he missed that opportunity. I don't see that as hindering his future chances for getting into a high-level university or actually as missing out on much of anything, other than learning high-level chemistry later on. I do think it's very important to keep our HG+ kids challenged and not bored in school, but I don't see immersion programs as getting in the way of giving our kids' enriched learning in elementary - instead I see them as adding enrichment through language. The thing that is *truly* standing in the way of HG+ kids learning at the pace and depth at which they can learn is more rooted in our school system (at least it is here) rather than in any one approach to learning. We just aren't set up to push our kids for maximum potential inside any of our classrooms, at least not until they are farther along in school, or with the exception of those districts that have really good full-time gifted classroom programs.


Honestly I've never known a family bother with enrolling in immersion programs simply for this reason, although it was suggested for our youngest dd as a way to help prevent her from being bored when she started kindergarten. I would have seen it as a potential positive, but I would have been enrolling her (if she'd gotten in) because I feel having a second language is a *huge* benefit in life for many reasons.


And this seems just a bit North-American-centric to me. Why not learn a language that is a primary language elsewhere in the world? We are quickly becoming an very global society. There are a lot more business people working today speaking Mandarin than speaking English as their primary language, for instance. Having a second language, whether or not your family has ties to that language now, may prove beneficial later on in a student's future career. And way back when I graduated from college in the dark ages... and was interviewing with companies for jobs that required absolutely no active use of a foreign language (I'm in a STEM field, btw)... the professionals who interviewed me *always* looked for several years of foreign language on my university transcript. If I was interviewing a prospective candidate for a position today in my field, for a position located within my English-speaking country with no need for any type of foreign language experience, if that candidate told me as part of their bio that they were somewhat fluent in Spanish (or any other language) and that they got their through going through a K-12 immersion program, that's one "something" interesting about that person that's going to set them apart from someone else. It's not going to get them the job unless they also have the top qualifications out of the potential candidate pool. But it *might* get them the job if there are 2+ candidates with identical job-related qualifications simply because I might perceive them to be well-rounded or interesting or whatever.

OK, that's enough from me on my soapbox... I think all I've really said in all of this is - there are a ton of good reasons to consider an immersion school if you are at all interested in it for your kids.

polarbear

Despite the famed US focus of your education system you seem to learn a lot more foreign languages. When I went to school in the 1980's 90% of high school students would have done no foreign language while the other 10% would have done a year or two of French. Avery small number may have done 5 years of French (3or 4 a year maybe). when I went to university in the 90's I did a 4 year chemical engineering type degree where every paper in every year was prescribed and no languages of any kind were included. The schedule was so crowded it would have been practically impossible to fit anything else in. The expectation was pretty much 13 hours a day 7 days a week.

Let me guess... you're an engineer?