About Teaching at ESP

ESP is an educational non-profit that was founded in 1971 by parents and teachers when Spanish was removed from the BVSD local curriculum due to budget constraints. I imagine they gathered in someone's living room and discussed the growing, rather than diminishing need for the language. Particular parents must have pushed to at least begin the program in their children's schools. SO - from maybe 2 or 3 classes, we have grown to over 600 students in the 2000-01 school year, serving both BVSD and St. Vrain Valley schools. (In the 2001-02 school year, this number dropped to just over 400 students. This was largely due to the district's policy change on information distribution. Given earlier/higher enrollment numbers, obviously parents are interested. However, it's hard to register your child for something you've never heard of. We consider our teachers as program representatives as well and offer bonuses following spring registration for re-enrollment of students for the following school year.)

Having a strong parent foundation and being governed by a volunteer parent Board of Directors, we continue to believe in the importance of maintaining solid parent ties with teachers throughout the school year. We provide teachers with class lists including home & work phone numbers as well as parent names and addresses. Teachers are expected to call parents just prior to the start of classes; introduce themselves; leave a contact phone #; invite parents to drop by class at their convenience; and give the parents the room name/location where the class will be held for the year. Additionally, a minimum of two more parent contacts must take place each semester (i.e. 3 total/semester). These may be by letter - saying hello; providing "extra" vocabulary in both English and Spanish that has been recently covered (please include anything that has not already been outlined for each unit on the Parent Page on our Web site); suggesting games that could be played at home to reinforce learning going on in class; and/or providing a mini-"progress report" with feedback on the areas where each particular child excels (we do NOT issue grades as this is intended to be interactive/fun exposure to the language). ALSO, in the final parent letter of the semester, we ask teachers to invite parents to an "open class" on the last day of that semester. During this class there may be food, and of course, students will want to show off their learning in the form of songs, games, skits, etc.

Teachers are provided with ongoing support from MENTORS. This is an experienced teacher or the director whom they may call with questions; who will periodically come to see a class and offer suggestions; and who also provides evening training meetings with topics such as Teaching to Different Learning Styles, Handling Parent Contacts, and Total Physical Response Storytelling. These teacher training meetings are important to attend as raises for the following year are based on efforts made to improve your teaching abilities. To start the year, there will be a series of three, mandatory training meetings in late August and early September (offered two nights per week over three weeks - choose one night each week). These meetings address the ESP Approach to Instruction, Classroom Management, and How to Plan Lessons. They are paid at $15.00 per 1 1/2 hour session. Starting teacher instructional pay is $16.50 per class which 45 is minutes of instructional time.

Class sizes range from 12 to 16 students. Classes begin the last week of September and meet 2 times per week, 45 minutes per class, and run for ten weeks total. They then resume the 3rd week of January and follow the same pattern. Classes generally meet M/W or T/Th, and there is a 5 minute passing period between the start or end of the regular school day.

We have 4 levels of curriculum: Auditory I (for all never-evers), Auditory II (for 1st & 2nd graders), Reading and Writing (for 3rd-5th graders who have completed the Auditory level), and Spanish Literature (for those who have completed the Reading & Writing level). Classes are generally divided K-2 and 3-5, if at all possible. This is due to literacy abilities. Younger students are not yet confident readers and writers of English, and we prefer not to interfere with that instruction going on during the regular school day. Each level of the curriculum is divided into units, and the units feature language topics, vocabulary, and suggested activities like songs, games, and stories. Some levels have specific stories associated with them, including: whole group read-alouds, 3rd person stories to be physically done and said at the same time, dialogues to use for skits and puppet shows, and thematic books featuring fun "expansion" activities related to the book's theme. Obviously, new vocabulary must be taught first and can be explored through games and songs before the story is actually introduced. Units may be covered in any order, but all units in that level must be covered during that year. This way the teacher for the following year can be sure of student language exposure. Feel free to be creative with activities as no teacher is limited to those included in the particular level they may be teaching. ESP library materials are available as a resource as well.

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