A Question for Elementary Teachers (HELP) (Howe: school districts, design, special education)

[HappyTexan]

Originally Posted by mimimomx3

Can you take a couple of weeks in a Spanish speaking country?

Would South Texas count ? A little side trip to Port A or South Padre might not be bad either. Hit Brownsville and immerse yourself for a week or two and hit the beaches.

[nmartinez12443]

I have also considered dating a hispanic women who speaks spanish so if any of you know any pm me. Just kidding

[mimimomx3]

Sounds like you're going to do great! Good luck!

[loves2read]

the Castillian of Spain won't help you one bit in a 5th grade classroom

many of your students if they were born out of the US are likely from Central America and speak a very different form of Spanish...even if they were born here and have parents who speak Spanish at home I can guarantee it won't be literate textbook Spanish...many of them can't read in Spanish any better than English

if you are serious about improving your real spanish speaking/understanding capabilities
listen to Spanish radio stations
watch Spanish language tv stations
check out anything in Spanish-- CDs/videos--you can rent from your local library since that is free--
see if you can find someone wanting help to pass a GED who is spanish speaking--that would be one-to-one and probably best help for both of you...libraries often have classes like that staffed with volunteers...
of course that coloquial spanish probably won't help you pass the certification test which I understand requires you to write using excellent Spanish grammar a fairly sophisticated essay or translation of something--but I may be wrong about that...

[Naomi Manischewitz]

Originally Posted by loves2read

the Castillian of Spain won't help you one bit in a 5th grade classroom

many of your students if they were born out of the US are likely from Central America and speak a very different form of Spanish...even if they were born here and have parents who speak Spanish at home I can guarantee it won't be literate textbook Spanish...many of them can't read in Spanish any better than English

thats what i was thinking too. i went to argentina and i speak conversational spanish. when i went there i gave a wtf look after i was talking to people. the kids i have worked with come from mexico and el savador (this guy is probably getting kids from the same countries), and yeah the spanish is VERY different.

[buffy888]

As students move up in grade level, the percentage of instruction in English increases and the percentage of Spanish decreases. Many middle schools do not have bilingual classes, just ESL, so this shift in the amount of instruction in English can help prepare them for their middle school years. In my district, there are certain subjects that must be taught in English after a certain grade - I don't know if this varies depending on district or if this is mandated somewhere. For example, at my school I believe Science is in English starting in 2nd grade? I don't teach bilingual, so I am definitely no expert, but we do have many bilingual students at my school as well as LEP kids in our general ed. classrooms.

Does your school have a lead bilingual teacher? If so, I would suggest finding a way to contact this person to see if s/he can help get you up to speed on what will be expected at your particular school. You need to find out what, if any subjects, are instructed partly or completely in Spanish; that can help you target the subjects in which you might need to work on gaining some academic language in Spanish. (If there is not a lead teacher, you should still be able to contact another bilingual teacher at the school. If you don't want to ask your principal about this, maybe you could contact the secretary if the school office is open now - you need to become friends with the school secretary anyway - and without revealing too much of your language concerns, explain that you are new to teaching in Texas and are just working on making the adjustment to a bilingual program in this state. Is there a bilingual teacher from the school she could suggest that you talk to? The secretary generally will have an idea of which teachers are more helpful/willing to work with others and could possibly point you in the right direction.)

I would also suggest poking around on the TEA website - search for bilingual education - to see if there is any helpful info there if you have not already done this. Also go to your district's website and see if they have any info from their bilingual department there. You might get some ideas on what is expected/dictated by the state or district. You will need to get used to some of the acronyms such as TELPAS and LPAC as people at your school will probably assume you know what these are and how they work.

Another concern would be conferences with and phone calls to/from parents. If they are like the parents at my school (even some of the parents of kids in general ed. classrooms rather than bilingual), they may know little or no English. You want to make sure you are going to be able to handle these conferences. You can brush up on typical phrases/terms that would be used at a parent/teacher conference. Also, as someone mentioned, there is always the possibility of one or more recent immigrants joining your classroom who may know much less English than the other students; this will be a case of using your ESL skills to scaffold instruction as you still need to maintain the balance of instruction in English and Spanish. Of course you also need to know all of the curse words, put downs, slang, etc. as the kids will probably be testing you to see what you know (especially in 5th grade!). Some of the bilingual kids will converse with each other at lunch, recess, specials, during cooperative learning, etc. in all English, some in a mix, and some in Spanish only.

Good luck.

[centralaustinite]

Do not forget that new students arrive daily in AISD, some of them straight from Mexico. It is very likely that you will have one or more students that know very little English. BUT I think that you are underestimating your spanish skills, you will probably do fine in an instructional setting.

It is excellent advice however to have help during parent teacher conferences and to brush up on your slang and kid-talk!

Buffy888 gave great advice! Re-read that post.

[Dr.Mom]

It certainly sounds like you're a caring, concerned teacher who put the needs of their students first. That's more than half the battle right there. I think your future students are lucky to have you as their teacher!

[nmartinez12443]

I really appreciate all the responses and I plan to do all of the above. So far I have been watching the spanish tv stations, using coffee break spanish in my car, improving my vocab using flash cards, and finally using the youtube lessons to perfect my past, present, and future congugation skills. I don't agree with the comment of Spain spanish not being acceptable for south american spanish, 95% of the words are the same with minor accent differences. I have had meetings/phone calls with parents who don't speak spanish and basically it has been fairly rough but got the job done. I thank you all for your responses and wish you success in your endeavors.

[loves2read]

the point about new students vs old is very true--you could have a mix in your classroom of students who qualify for ESL but have better English skills than many recent immigrants--sometimes that makes for great pairing/student tutors

good luck
I think your school made a good hire