TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Eagerly reading from the pages of a Magic Tree House book, you could tell by the inflection in her voice that fifth grader London Emerson was excited to read in Spanish in front of the class.
She’s been speaking Spanish since pre-k, and is one of the students at Ventana Vista Elementary School where they have a Spanish immersion education program.
Students learn in Spanish for at least half the day.
“It takes a lot of practice and definitely a lot of messing up,” Emerson said.
However, messing up then getting more comfortable speaking the language is how Emerson said she improves.
“Your Spanish just starts to flow and then you’re able to talk and you start putting words into sentences and then it kind of clicks,” she said.
She and her friends often use Spanish outside of class, speaking to each other to help each other improve.
“We just kind of incorporate it into our conversations sometimes, make it more fun!” she said.
Speaking in Spanish is a benefit she said can help her and others, especially if they were to go visit or live in a country that speaks Spanish.
“If they ever go to like Mexico or somewhere where a bunch of people speak Spanish, they’ll be able to have like a long conversation,” the fifth grader said.
Explaining to her fifth grade students the differences in the states of matter, DeDe Alexander used visual mediums to teach her students in Spanish.
“I have a lot of little, oh, little puppets, and visuals and things to really help them really understand,” Alexander said.
She was a third grade teacher for years before becoming a fifth grade teacher and now she has a lot of the students she did a few years ago.
When they speak back to her in Spanish, she’s able to see the progress they’ve made in a little over a year.
“They have moved from like a phrase phase where they could make little short phrases to where they can really create with language now,” she said.
However, understanding Spanish begins early on and that’s why first grade teacher Tinina Hippner also uses creative ways to teach her students Spanish.
As she sang songs with them in Spanish on Monday, she taught them about healthy versus unhealthy habits.
However, her lessons often don’t just incorporate speaking Spanish, but she tries to also teach her students about some of the countries that speak the language.
“They also become more culturally aware I think. We try to add culture into our lessons as much as we can. And just the fact that knowing that there’s other languages and people around the world speaking other languages, I think is good,” she said.
Nita Jain is a parent at the school who has kindergarten and fourth grade students. She said it’s been valuable seeing the way that her fourth grade student has progressed and she’s excited for her kindergartner to do the same.
“Every year they become more and more fluent and being fluent in a language is really important because it’s a tool that they can carry throughout their whole career,” Jain said.
As she considers becoming a teacher, and maybe even one that teaches in Spanish, Emerson said she’s excited about the prospect of seeing her potential future students progress in the same way she did.
“Also it’s fun, getting to learn new languages and stuff like that, and it kind of makes me excited to go to school everyday!” Emerson said.
