001this year was the first time that World Language and ell kind of took our two departments and collided them together for what we're calling an informal exchange our Spanish 2 class and our ell level two class exchange within the same period one class travels to the other one group is practicing Spanish while the other group is practicing their English skills my college roommate was a white Chicago graduate and she had something that I didn't have which was cultural fluency she was able to interact with very comfortably people from all over the world I knew that had to be a special West Chicago thing so developing some cultural fluency was the first idea the purpose is to bring together two communities that normally would not cross paths and in doing so we create a space for
002Multicultural education which is so unique to West Chicago because of our student population because we have students from over 20 different countries that are represented here in the school the second was from our exchanges We Are One of the only high schools that offers four different exchange programs we go to Costa Rica we go to Spain we go to France we go to Germany those kids learn so much when they're in country but obviously we can't take every Spanish one through four student to a Spanish-speaking country every year so we kind of looked at our own community and it's like we have the awesome ability to have these authentic conversations here in our building which not every school gets to have so we almost took that idea of an exchange program and made it happen
003here we have native speakers of Spanish down the hall why would we not use those resources to be able to communicate ask each other questions about things we're learning in class and really create that environment where they're going to make mistakes but that's totally fine they're going to ask questions about things that they're learning in class and then they can practice their Spanish with native speakers that's what this is supposed to do give them an opportunity to really communicate low stakes it's high energy High Joy nobody's getting graded nothing's being recorded just give them an opportunity to communicate with each other so I think our kids are always really nervous like that's one thing that every level of language whether it's a German class French class Spanish class and English class our kids are so
004afraid to make mistakes so when we can give them the opportunity without the teacher eyes on them and they can just speak freely with kids their age I think that's the ideal goal we shouldn't be practicing English with other people who are learning English we should be practicing English with native speakers of English and vice versa in the Spanish World putting both of our groups where they're the quote unquote strong speaker right I'm the strong speaker of Spanish because I speak it at home or I'm the strong speaker of English because I speak it at home these kids are feeling the way that the other feels both groups really get to understand where the other person is at with language learning and it creates just this environment of understanding and empathy and support the change
005that I have seen in my students after these exchanges is increased confidence in their speaking abilities they also can't believe how well the Spanish students speak Spanish in our school so an appreciation them off or the language skills that are here in our school some things that they've said to us as teachers after is oh my gosh they thought I was really good at Spanish or oh my gosh I made a mistake and they still understood me seeing that you don't need to be perfect to make conversation happen actually feeling like oh my gosh I'm in Spanish too and I do know how to speak in Spanish because they just understood me and I think it happens for both groups that's been such a positive outcome I think in the future if we can incorporate
006this with more classes and more levels that's ideal down the road if we can find a way to incorporate a lot of our ell levels with a lot of our Spanish levels and really make more opportunities for both groups to speak the language that they're learning ideally in the future I think to allow for these authentic experiences will only better our kids foreign [Music]