Presidio Hill School begins teaching Spanish in
third grade. The program is an engaging one with students participating
in creative hands-on projects and activities with a goal of developing immediate language
skills and equipping students with life-long language acquisition
strategies.
In the middle school, due to an influx of new students with varying levels of Spanish language skills, Spanish classes are divided into two sections. Each section works to develop immediate language skills and equip students with useful,
life-long language acquisition strategies. The objectives are to
develop, reinforce, and refine communicative competency in listening,
speaking, reading, writing, and culture.
Spanish at Presidio Hill School is an integrated experience drawing
on students' art and drama abilities as well as writing, speaking and
presentational skills. Students will read and listen to a
book in Spanish and using the target vocabulary they have learned and
utilizing TPR techniques, (see below), they write their own story. Students bring
their stories' characters to life by drawing or modeling them in clay or
other materials. Finally, students give a dramatic presentation of their
story and receive a review of their work from their classmates.
Through an inductive approach,
students gain an intuitive understanding of how the language is
acquired and how they can use this knowledge to express themselves
linguistically. Differentiation of language instruction takes place by adapting the
contents and techniques to the differing abilities and needs of the
students. The various methodologies employed take into consideration
different learning styles.
Among the methodologies incorporated are the
Natural Approach, Total Physical Response (TPR) and TPR Story Telling.
These methods presuppose that world-language instruction should meet
students' communicative needs. Students begin by acquiring the
vocabulary, phrases, structures and eventually the grammatical and
written skills appropriate to and useful in their everyday environment.