On January 12, 2000 I had the pleasure of visiting Francis Scott Key Elementary in Arlington, VA. The visit was arranged by Regla Armengol of the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) in Washington, DC. The purpose of my visit was to observe a public elementary school operating a partial immersion program in Spanish and English. This model is close to the approach being planned for the new John Stanford International School in Seattle, WA.
Principal Marjorie Myers and Assistant Principal Evelyn Fernandez spent the day answering questions that I brought from the teachers at the John Stanford International School in Seattle. They also arranged several class visitations. This report summarizes responses to the Questions from the John Stanford International School Teachers, Observations and Notes during the Visit, and a list of Resources Obtained from the School.
Contact Information:
Evelyn Fernandez, Assistant Principal
Francis Scott Key Elementary
2300 Key Boulevard
Arlington, VA 22201
(703) 228-4210
fax: (703) 524-2236
Email: efernandez@arlington.k12.va.us
Since the school teaches subject content in Spanish, the concept of "themes" is not really relevant in an immersion program the way that it might be in a FLES program. (comment from Regla Armengol)
Math, Science, and Spanish language are taught K-5 in Spanish.
Science was selected because of the hands-on activities that are beneficial for language learning and the availability of materials in Spanish for science.
Originally, they taught Social Studies for the first three years, but when they got to the 4th grade level, where study of Virginia state history is required, they realized that there were no adequate materials in Spanish. So they switched to Math in Spanish for grades 4-5. Eventually, they found that Math was a better fit all the way through because it is so tangible. Now they do Math K-5 in Spanish.
All of the Spanish immersion teachers except one are native speakers of Spanish, and the one non-native speaker is close to native. All of the English language teachers are native speakers of English. Almost everybody speaks Spanish and English. There are a few monolingual teachers (Art, Music, PE, a couple of Special Ed teachers and two or three classroom teachers). Some of the native language Spanish speakers are not very fluent in English.
Where are you recruiting native speaking teachers from?
Many Spanish speakers are available in the DC area. They have used ads to attract teachers and word-of-mouth. With PTA support, they’ve been able to bring in exchange teachers through the Spanish Embassy to work as assistants. (Parents provide room and board to the teachers.) They also have an exchange program with El Salvador.
The day is too short. Not enough time with all the special classes – PE, music, etc. – and interruptions.
Recruitment of students takes an ongoing effort. Administrators go out and meet prospective kindergartners. It is necessary to sell the program each year, especially to the English families. (The Hispanic families are already attracted.)
Sometimes recruitment of teachers is challenging.
Materials in Spanish? - This has not been a problem for them.
49% of kids qualify for free or reduced price lunch; however they also have upper class kids (children of ambassadors)
35% qualify for ESL help (all are Spanish speaking)
Now they are attracting more African-American kids. Parents realize the benefit when they see how well their children do. The Montessori preschool attracts more kids with other languages besides Spanish.
Children in special education are integrated into the program and study both Spanish and English.
They have developed a program called HERTS that allows them to offer small group reading for children at every reading level. During the HERTS time, children with special needs leave to work with a specialist, and the remaining children work (on English reading) with their main teacher. This smaller class-size for reading attracts kids from families who want their children to have more challenging reading. For Spanish-speaking kids who still need support, they can get extra ESL help during this time.
KEY: Know every child and where they’re at in both languages.
Science: Encyclopedia Britannica has materials (Foss kits) in Spanish; McMillan science units (booklets) They follow the county curriculum for Science, which includes 4 concepts per grade level.
Math: Everyday Math from University of Chicago (spiral curriculum that requires of lot of language for problem solving and thinking), complemented by Addison-Wesley.
Piñata series of Spanish readers.
HERTS, plus paid assistants in the classroom; volunteers; K12 tutors through partnerships.
Homework club – every day for about 40 students grades 3-5 – English and Spanish.
Important: offer workshops to prepare tutors.
Students: English speaking population is pretty stable (about 5%); Spanish population is more mobile.
Teachers: varies – sometimes teachers get transferred or their husbands change jobs.
They don’t take English-only students after 2nd grade (unless there’s a big commitment from the family to provide extra tutoring).
For Spanish speaking kids, if they’re in the neighborhood they take them. If they need ESL, they get 3 weeks intense language instruction, then they are integrated into the program. They also receive language with the HERTS teachers and/or extra help (pull-out) if more help is needed.
There is some attrition among the English speaking population. At K, there is 50% English/Spanish. By grade 3, closer to 45% English/55% Spanish, and by grades 4-5 40% English/60% Spanish. (They have 4 classes in grades K-4; 3 classes in grades 4-5.)
Half the population is Hispanic. They also have some African-American students. They are attracting more each year.
The county coordinator and a task force, including parents, have been meeting to design a program to articulate with middle school. There are three immersion elementary programs that feed into that middle school – you need critical mass to make it work.
Intensive language instruction, then integrate into the immersion program part of the day. Some are integrated into the English part of the day right away; some go to a HILT (High Intensity Language Training) class part of the day. It depends on their level, background knowledge, etc. They try to really know the kids.
PTA; partnerships with local business, Dept. of Energy. Also a Spanish Immersion network (for the 3 elementary schools and 1 middle school) that meets monthly connects with both English and Hispanic parents.
Yes – connect with the community.
Do a Halloween parade out to local businesses.
Band plays.
Poetry Contest – where students write or memorize an author’s poem.
Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month.
Hold a Spanish-only book fair, and invite all schools to attend.
They’re so involved in school it’s hard to attract them. Recently they have had three high school students tutoring kids after school.
Better – they have 75 tutors from businesses.
Meet weekly in team meetings by grade (during "specials" – Art, Music, PE).
On Wednesday, school has early release (1:40) for teachers to do own planning or to meet by language.
Yes [see Resources]
Tutoring and other support.
They started as a school within a school, but now the entire school is using the 50% Immersion model.
Use rubrics for oral language and writing, with a simplified version to send home. [See Resources]
Look at best practices.
Used CAL assessments.
Yes – Virginia has "Standards of Learning" (SOLs).
They offer workshops in the SOLs, taught by the teachers, in Reading, Writing, Math, and Social Studies.
Teachers are supposed to predict which kids will need help achieving the standards based on their own assessments and test scores. They use Running Records and Degrees of Reading Power.
State assessments: 3rd grade Reading, Writing, Math; 4th grade Social Studies; 5th grade all; high school – every subject – students must pass in order to graduate.
[See Resources - Rubrics]
Students leaving this program have placed in Spanish 3 or 4 or even AP.
There are high school students, who after 3 years, communicate less well than the 5th graders (although they know more grammar).
[See Resources – Curriculum Frameworks]
Started in 1994 with the whole school partial immersion program. The partial immersion program (school within a school) started in 1986.
Do Math in Spanish (rather than Social Studies).
Pay attention to your community. They started by trying to attract Anglo "gifted" kids. Now – integrate special ed students and mainstream them.
No regrets.
Displays/Resources. Everywhere there are signs/flyers in English and Spanish. At the entrance to the school are a series of 40 "cubbies" with a variety of information and resources about the YMCA, daycare, enrichment, special education, Virginia state Standards of Learning, joining PTA, etc.
Addressing Teachers/Children. In the Montessori school, children address teachers by their first names. In grades 1-5, they address English speaking teachers as Mr., Ms., etc. and Spanish speaking teachers as Señor, Señora, etc. In terms of how the teachers address the kids, they ask the children what they prefer. Do they want to be John or Juan? There is no particular effort to pronounce American names with a Spanish accent.
This document is similar to the School Report Card required by Washington State. This report shows how this school compares to the Division and State in terms of overall student achievement on the Virginia Standards of Learning Testing. (For example, in grade 3, 85.71% of students at Key met the standard, vs. 69.13% for the Division and 54.73% for the State in 1997-98.)
This document is the local report card and lists the school’s goals, instructional highlights, awards and recognition, special activities and community service, opportunities for parent involvement, technology, school safety, transportation, and school population. (For example, 242 out of 544 students receive ESL support; 50% of students receive free or reduced price lunch; average class size is 22.9)
This shows the schedule and breakdown of time. (For example, 2 hrs. 27 min. in each language each day)
PowerPoint notes from Evelyn E. Fernandez on the Two-Way Partial Spanish Immersion Program. (Includes reasons why parents enroll their children in immersion and how a partial immersion program is designed.)
This document is published by the Division of Instruction Foreign Language Dept. Arlington Public Schools (1996). It includes: Philosophy Statement; Mission Statement; Spanish Language Arts Goals for a partial immersion program; Language and Communication Goals by Grade Level and across the developmental continuum; Language Forms (grammar) by grade level; Teaching Activities by grade level in the skill areas of Listening and Viewing, Speaking, Reading, and Writing; and Language Contexts (School, Family and Home, Environment, Time and Numerality, Food, and Clothing) and Functional Skills by grade level.
This extensive guide, in English and Spanish, includes: Scoring Guide for Rubrics; Rubrics for Speaking and Writing Grades 1-5; and Classroom Matrices for Speaking and Writing Scores, along with sample rubrics.
These documents for grades 1-5 are a simplified version of the scoring rubrics in Resource #6, suitable for use as a send-home progress report assessing the student’s oral language progress in the areas of fluency, vocabulary, and grammar.
This document provides a thorough introduction into portfolio assessment and how to design a portfolio, select pieces to include, keep a Running Reading Record, etc. It includes many sample forms (in both English and Spanish) and questionnaires for students and parents, as well as a bibliography.
This 1995 Summer Curriculum Project includes a wealth of process skills, questions, and vocabulary in English and Spanish designed for use in elementary Science. (Example process skills: Observation, Collecting Data, Making Graphs and Charts, Interpreting Data, Communication Oral and Written, Classifying, Measuring, Predicting, Investigating, Making a Drawing or Model, and Inferring)
This 1999 document from Myriam Stein of Arlington Public Schools provides a series of sample science lessons (for grades 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) incorporating linguistic and content objectives. (Examples: What Do Scientists Do?, How does Nature Change in the Spring?, How do Plants Absorb Water? etc.)
This document outlines Key School’s parent involvement plan for 1998-1999. Their approach is based on the National Standards for Parent/Family Involvement (published by National PTA) and the research of Dr. Joyce Epstein at Johns Hopkins University. The plan focuses on five areas: Parents and Schools as Communicators (Communicating), Parents and Schools as Supporters (Volunteers), Parents and Schools as Learners (Parenting Skills), Parents and Schools as Teachers (Learning at Home), and Parents and Schools in Shared Governance (Representing Other Parents).
Padres Unidos Para Triunfar Calendar of Activities for 1999-2000 (programs offered twice a month for families during the school year); English classes for Adults; "I spy"; "Bright Ideas"; Key PTA Membership Form and Volunteer Form (English and Spanish versions); Project Family Classes flyer.