IN A sunny classroom scattered with Spanish translations of “Green Eggs and Ham” and Spanish-English dictionaries, Anabel Barrón reads aloud to her second-grade class from a book about penguins. “Y los pingüinos vuelan?” she asked. “No, they don’t fly!” answered an eager boy with a neat crew cut. “En español, por favor, Justin,” Ms Barrón gently chided him.
The classroom is one of several that offers bilingual instruction at the Sandra Cisneros Campus, a charter school in the Echo Park neighbourhood of Los Angeles that serves mostly Latino children. Kindergarteners in its dual-immersion programme spend 80% of their days in Spanish and 20% in English. Each subsequent year they spend an extra 10% of their time in English until fifth grade, when 70% of their instruction is in English and 30% in Spanish.
The original theory underpinning such programmes was that they helped Spanish-dominant children perform better by easing them into English. Today, says Melissa Mendoza, the school’s principal, Latino parents are seeking...Continue reading
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