001Bienvenidos a Madison Heights! The Spanish Immersion program here at Heights is a 50/50 program. It starts from Kindergarten through 4th grade. Half of the day the students spend learning science and social studies in Spanish. And the other half they're learning english language arts and math in English. I think language immersion is important for kids because it helps them to be more successful learners and it creates flexibility in the way that they learn and what they learn which creates more versatile thinking. The benefit that these kids have is that they are having real conversations in Spanish. The directions are in Spanish, they are learning content: science and social studies, in Spanish. And so that's the difference between the traditional Spanish program that you would have in high school and junior high school versus the Spanish Immersion
002program here at school. I think I like it because it does require not only teachers, but students, to be flexible in their learning. Parents are so supportive of the program. They just, they are so happy when their kids go home and actually use Spanish words at home. Like, even if they're just singing a song or if they ask for things and might use a Spanish word. They're just like so happy! Parents absolutely love the program. I would have to say that the majority of our parents are not Spanish speakers themselves, so it blows them away the amount of Spanish that first graders are speaking. It's amazing what they can learn and how quickly they can learn it. Sharing my culture and watching a student come into my classroom with very little to zero experience in
003Spanish and then seeing them at this time of year, being able to read in Spanish and pronounce the letters, and just doing work on their own - that's my favorite part. I feel incredibly fortunate that I'm teaching at a school not only where students love to come and learn and have fun, but the teachers really do love teaching here. I like Spanish Immersion cuz I can speak to more people and I'm bilingual, so I have more opportunities for jobs. Sometimes Spanish can go with some other languages, so there might be some words that are in another language that are from Spanish, so it would be easier to learn another language. Everybody here is very nice, especially the teachers and all the kids, too.