Concordia Magazine

Fully Immersed in Education

By Danielle Hance

Diana Cobbs '03 and Lindsay Buchholz '06 prepare global citizens daily. When you visit the classrooms of these teachers at Ellen Hopkins Elementary School, Moorhead, the students stand in "filas" before leaving the room, read stories about "leónes" roaring and learn about "numeradores" and "denominadores" in math class. You also might notice a strange letter called an "ñ" in the alphabet.

Welcome to Spanish immersion. This elective program in Moorhead and nationwide allows children to learn a second language while they are still learning their first. The curriculum is identical to that of their English-speaking peers, except that the teachers speak in Spanish. The children also have a daily reading and writing time in English.

Most of the children come into the Spanish immersion program with little or no Spanish background, so the first days of school can be quite interesting, says Cobbs, who started her career teaching kindergarten.

"The first day getting in line, I had to move them physically," she says. "But after that, they learned the word 'fila' [line]."

The kids pick up the language naturally, learning Spanish in the same way they learned English. Unlike a typical high school Spanish class, the pupils don’t spend hours conjugating verbs and learning the finer points of Spanish grammar.

Total immersion, according to the Center of Applied Linguistics, is the best way to gain proficiency in a foreign language.

In the early grades, the focus is on listening. Cobbs' first-graders are just starting to speak and write in sentences. They can now do show and tell in Spanish and name colors, numbers and animals.

More than 300 immersion programs have been implemented in 39 states nationwide, according to the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition.

While this represents only about 1 percent of students, the benefits of immersion are numerous – bilingualism, cultural sensitivity and increased confidence, to name a few.

"A lot of my students are just starting to understand what it means to be bilingual. They start realizing, 'Wow, I know two languages,'" says Buchholz.

Cobbs realized the advantages of Spanish immersion education early. She was a graduate of a Spanish immersion program, and she knew before she stepped into her first college class that she wanted to be a Spanish immersion teacher. Since she was already bilingual and loved kids, she double majored in Spanish and elementary education at Concordia. One of the highlights of her college experience was spending a semester in Spain.

Dr. Mary Rice, professor of Spanish and Hispanic studies, says that Concordia has numerous opportunities for language students to get hands-on experiences – from study abroad, to co-ops, to working at Concordia Language Villages for a weekend or a summer. Having the Ellen Hopkins immersion program has been a real plus, she says.

"We are also lucky to be the only language with an immersion program here in town in which our students can have hands-on learning experience," she says.

Cobbs completed her practicum and student teaching in Spanish immersion. She is now in her eighth year of teaching and she still loves her job. Many other Concordia graduates have found job satisfaction in immersion education. In the Moorhead school system alone, there are at least five alumna teaching Spanish immersion. Cobbs gets her greatest joy from her students.

"They are sweet kids who work hard at everything they do," Cobbs says.

Buchholz, who teaches fourth and fifth grade, sees how much being immersed in Spanish helps her students. She taught high school Spanish for two years before teaching Spanish immersion at Ellen Hopkins. Buchholz can see how much faster young learners pick up a second language.

They also have the benefit of all-day Spanish instruction. Most of her students entered the program in kindergarten, so, by the time they reach the upper grades, they are practically fluent. In fact, the Center for Applied Linguistics cites that most immersion students are fluent by second or third grade.

Some critics of immersion education believe that the students’ English skills will lag compared to their English-only peers, but this has not been the case for Buchholz’s students.

"A lot of my [former] students tell me that middle school is so easy because they don’t have to switch between two languages," she says.

One of Buchholz’s students traveled to Mexico during the summer and was able to communicate in Spanish. Other students have Spanish-speaking family friends or converse with siblings in the program. But even if they never have a crosscultural experience, learning Spanish has value.

"Spanish makes them [the students] more marketable,” says Buchholz. “It will help them in the future no matter what they do."

Photo: Sheldon Green

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