Language Planning at John Stanford International School

Since early 2000, the Language Planning Team of the John Stanford International School has been meeting to lay the foundation for the language immersion program. The planning team has included teachers, parents, the principal, as well as professors and students from the University of Washington. 

Academic Standards

One of the key tasks of the World Language Planning Team has been to ensure that the curriculum of the Immersion Program aligns with district, state, and national learning standards:

Seattle School District Kindergarten Math Standards
Seattle School District 1st Grade Math Standards
World Language Standards

Handouts for Parents and Families

We have created a number of handouts for parents and families of students in the Spanish language immersion program:

Welcome Letter September, 2000 
At the beginning of the school year, we sent out a welcome letter to parents to introduce them to the immersion program and let them know what to expect (and what not to expect).

Spanish Language and Communication Goals for Kindergarten and First Grade (pdf file)
In the Spanish Immersion Program, we don't specifically teach the Spanish language. Instead, we teach the children the content areas of Math and Science using the Spanish language. By using Spanish to learn Math and Science, the children will gradually pick up (or acquire) the language, as well. It's a lot like the way we learn our first language. Just as we talk about the goals (or content standards) for Math and Science, we do also have goals for the acquisition of Spanish language. This document gives you a snapshot of the language and communication skills the children will begin to demonstrate over the next year or so as they progress in the Immersion Program. Note, in particular, that we don't give formal grammar lessons. However, they will be exposed to and learn to understand and use many of the language forms that are specific to Spanish. 

Progress Report for Spanish Immersion Program (pdf file)
Each trimester when you receive your child's regular progress report from school, you will also receive a progress report for Spanish language. For this first year, our focus is primarily on understanding and speaking (i.e. Receptive Language and Expressive Language), and less on reading and writing, although children will also be gaining skills in those areas. We do not assign letter grades or numbers to their progress. Instead, we track their increasing use of Spanish in the classroom to help you see their growth across time. Remember that during the early stages of language acquisition, it is not unusual for a child to be "silent" in the new language for some period of time. Don't be discouraged if the progress report says "Almost never" or "Seldom" regarding communicating in Spanish in the area of Expressive Language. However, we will be concerned if a child is not making an effort to participate or communicate in class in either English or Spanish.

Language Acquisition in an Immersion Language Program (pdf file)
This document describes the stages of second language acquisition and what to expect at each stage.

Note: Most of these files are in PDF format which allows you to view it electronically on most computers. The freely available Adobe Acrobat reader is required to view and print PDF files.)

Program Evaluation

An important part of implementing any new program is to evaluate how it is going. For more information on the evaluation process and results, see Evaluating the Language Immersion Program.

Historical Reports and Meeting Notes

If you are considering implementing a language immersion program, you may find it helpful to review the process that we went through to design our program as we did. This process included many planning meetings, site visits to other schools with language immersion programs, curriculum planning, and in-depth training in teaching in a language immersion program. The Historical Reports and Meeting Notes from the Language Planning Committee are available here: