西班牙语浸入式

发展双语，培养全球公民

LM 的学术卓越和基督般的爱社区培养了富有创造力和创新精神的学习者，他们为大学、职业和生活做好了准备，并准备好通过同情、建立和平和服务来改变世界。

Our Spanish Immersion Program begins in Kindergarten with some introduction to Spanish in PreK with the use of “Hola Amigo” resources.  Immersion students spend their day learning in Spanish. Our immersion program uses language as a tool to learn content rather than just another content area to study. Spanish Immersion students meet all academic standards of Lancaster Mennonite School while becoming proficient in the Spanish language and developing cultural understanding. Our program develops bilingual and bicultural students that are prepared to transform their worlds.

LM seeks to build bridges of peace and to cultivate global citizens, and there is no better way to accomplish these goals than to nurture cultural understanding and bilingualism in our students. Immersion students are prepared to engage with an ever-more global society by using their language skills to explore more varied career opportunities, to form more diverse personal connections, and to have a more complex world understanding.

学生与老师相聚

为什么选择沉浸式？

Many countries around the world have embraced the immersion model for decades since learning two, three or even four languages is considered normal. In the last few years, the immersion model of learning has begun to grow in the United States with more schools adding programs.

浸入式课程是目前发展最快、最有效的世界语言教学类型。语言沉浸的目标是让学生精通另一种语言，同时提高文化意识。

The immersion model uses the entire school day to instruct students in another language. Academic subjects are taught in Spanish rather than simply teaching about the language itself. All of this produces much more proficient language results compared to a typical Spanish instruction class. Students develop native-like proficiency by the time they complete the immersion program.

Why Spanish?

According to the latest census data, almost 42 million people in the United States speak Spanish. This translates to 13% of the population. Around the world, over 496 million people speak Spanish as their first language and 75 million people consider it their second language (Instituto Cervantes).

它提供什么？

The immersion program begins in Kindergarten and continues through high school. In K-4th, all content instruction is in Spanish. In 3rd-4th students have a daily English class that focuses on strengthening writing and spelling. In 5th-8th students switch to the maintenance phase and have two daily classes in Spanish and the rest in English. In High School, immersion students can take AP Spanish Language and Culture in a two-year cycle, with different content each year. An advanced Spanish Culture course is offered as an additional elective after this. Students that remain in the program will attain fluency in oral and written Spanish.

What about English?

英语阅读教学将在家中完成。K-2nd 没有直接的英语识字指导。 家长应该认识到，在获得英语读写能力方面可能会有最初的延迟。此外，父母需要明白，他们有责任通过在家中通过给孩子读书和让孩子读书来培养孩子的英语读写能力。到五年级时，大多数浸入式学生的表现与纯英语的同龄人相似。对于父母来说，为了实现双重识字的长期利益，父母必须期望并接受英语读写能力的短期滞后。

Typical Day

The first year of immersion involves lots of songs, movement, and hands-on activities that keep students engaged and having fun while they learn. Teachers make their lessons comprehensible by using pictures, gestures, repetition, and modeling. All LM classrooms have interactive whiteboards that allow technology to be used each day to further language learning.  The first few weeks may be challenging for some students, but children will quickly adapt to being immersed in another language.

Parents' Role

Families are asked to make a long-term commitment to the Spanish Immersion Program. A long-term commitment is necessary for the child to experience the ​full ​benefits of the program.​ Also, ​like all parents, parents of children in the Spanish Immersion Program must provide experiences that help their child develop English language skills, including reading to their children in English and having their children read to them in English.

Expectations for Parents

  • Be informed about the immersion program
  • Promote language learning in your child
  • Read daily in English with your child
  • Ensure your child attends school regularly
  • Provide experiences to enrich Spanish skills and culture

Benefits of Spanish Immersion

  • Builds empathy and social skills
  • 加强大脑连接和解决问题的能力
  • Increases understanding of other cultures
  • Develops cross-cultural skills and global perspectives
  • Broadens career opportunities
  • Enables conversation with 80% of the world (as English AND Spanish speakers)

People who learn a second language from a young age have better problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, as well as more perseverance and follow through because their frontal lobe is constantly being put to work.

Start Young

The young child’s brain is developmentally ready to learn language. There is a window of opportunity in which the brain is most receptive to new language acquisition, which allows children to learn another language much like they learned their first. Most children become highly proficient in their new language, typically far better than those who begin to learn a new language later in life.
There are different variations of immersion programs but most schools choose to follow an early immersion model that begins in Kindergarten. Students that begin at this early stage develop both fluency and literacy in another language without any detriment to their English academic skills (Cummins, 1998). At this early stage, children follow a “natural” language-learning model that imitates how they learn their first language. They first develop language through receptive skills, like listening, before moving on to productive skills, like writing and speaking. Also at this early stage children tend to have less anxiety in relation to language learning and view learning in another language as simply, “going to school”.

Proficiency

Most students will begin to become more fluent and confident in their ability after only two to three years in the program (Fortune and Tedick, 2003). By the end of fifth grade, most students will be considered to be both bilingual and bicultural and will then enter into a maintenance stage of language learning.

课程设置

​The Spanish Immersion Program follows the LM curriculum except that classroom instruction will be in Spanish. Teachers work hard to make the Spanish comprehensible, even for beginning students. In the early grades this includes the use of songs, useful phrases, chants and rhymes, and carefully structured days with familiar routines. As students progress in the program and their comprehension improves, less supports are needed. In the first two years of the program, students may need to use some English to communicate due to their limited language capacity. After that year, students are expected to use Spanish in all their communication throughout the day, with the exception of Specials (music, art, and physical education)) and English classes. Classroom decorations and learning tools are all in Spanish as well.

FAQ's

More Spanish Immersion FAQ's

REGISTER

Parents who are interested in enrolling their children should complete a Commitment Form to reserve a place in the program. Enrollment will not be considered complete until the school’s regular application form is completed, submitted and accepted, along with a registration fee.

Every student will participate in a kindergarten readiness assessment before being placed in the program.

注册

Spanish Immersion students reflect on the benefits of Spanish Immersion and learning another language. Lancaster Mennonite offers this program starting in kindergarten and going through High School. The Spanish Immersion program creates bilingual students with proficiency in speaking, listening, reading and writing in both Spanish and English.

多亏了Spanish Immersion，我的3个孩子都能说流利的西班牙语！

西班牙语浸入式课程给我留下了深刻的印象。我的三个孩子参加了这个项目，由于学校和其他因素，他们的西班牙语非常流利。我最喜欢的是，我的孩子在英语语法、阅读和写作方面也做得很好，因此他们在两种语言中都学到了很多东西。

辛西娅·凯特琳

西班牙语浸入式课程的孩子的父母

I AM FLUENT IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE

I like that because of the Spanish Immersion Program at Lancaster Mennonite I am fluent in another language.

Avery K.

Student of the Spanish Immersion Program

Our daughter is thriving!

Our daughter is not only acquiring the vocabulary, but she is functional. This can be seen in the way she communicates over the phone with my parents and other family living in Argentina. She can express ideas and put thoughts together in order to coherently communicate rather than learning a word here or there and having to think really hard about how to put together a sentence. We see her able to translate her thoughts clearly, and in detail to my parents, and able to handle follow up questions, and explain for clarity.

She doesn't see things as happening in one language or the other, she let's life happen and uses these tools to explain to everyone her experience. My husband was concerned about math comprehension as she got older, but she sees numbers as another way of communication of different relationships, and understands the answer is, and the choice of language to answer in is for the listener, and isn't related to understanding the equation.

Honestly, we are very impressed with how grounded and functional the learning has been, and how she seems to thrive in the figuring out of things that may daunt others at this age, she simply asks why, and we set out to find out.

Patricia Barnes

西班牙语浸入式课程的孩子的父母

Spanish Immersion Teachers

Grade Level Program Overview

Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grades

Students are fully immersed in Spanish. Language Arts and Math are both taught exclusively in Spanish. Bible and specials classes (music, gym, and art) are in English.

3rd and 4th grades

Students continue to be immersed in Spanish with the addition of Language Arts in English to develop proficiency in both reading and writing. This daily English instruction is approximately 30 minutes in 3rd grade and 40 minutes in 4th grade. Bible is also taught in Spanish.

5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades

初中年级提供沉浸式课程的维护阶段。学生每天有 90 分钟（两节课）的西班牙语教学时间，以确保他们持续熟练掌握。这包括西班牙语的语言艺术和社会研究。学生将接受单独的英语语言艺术课程。

9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades

The maintenance phase continues in the high school with the goal of developing higher-level Spanish proficiency. In 9th and 10th grade, students can take AP Spanish Language and Culture. One year’s content focuses on Central America and the Caribbean with the other on South America. In 11th or 12th grade immersion students can take an advanced Spanish elective. These courses are also open to qualified heritage Spanish speakers. Students have the opportunity to participate in cross-cultural trips and service opportunities. All courses count for World Language Credit.

注册

Parents who are interested in enrolling their children should complete a Commitment Form to reserve a place in the program. Enrollment will not be considered complete until the school’s regular application form is completed, submitted and accepted, along with a $100 registration fee.

Prospective students will complete a Kindergarten readiness assessment to determine the best classroom placement, or for older students an assessment of their level of Spanish proficiency for acceptance into the program.

Commitment Form