Newsletter - Fall 2008

Bienvenidos 2008-2009 By Astrid Clough McDowell, President The Elementary Spanish Program would like to welcome you to another exciting year of Spanish! Our organization was started over thirty years ago, when a group of Boulder parents and teachers decided to stand up for early-age secondary language acquisition, after the BVSD cut it out of the standard curriculum (due to budget constraints). Unless your child attends a charter or private school, a foreign language is probably not offered until middle school. ESP exists to provide young children with before- or after-school Spanish classes at their respective schools. We strongly believe that it is vital that children begin to learn a second language at the earliest age possible. We are proud to serve over 950 students this year! We are actively seeking Parent Advocates to be representatives of our organization in their neighborhoods and respective schools. We also invite you to attend one of our monthly meetings of the Board of Directors. If you are interested in becoming involved or even just volunteering a few hours a month, please contact our office at 303-440-7196. On behalf of the organization, I would like to thank each and every person that has contributed to the existence and success of the program. Your commitment and dedication to the broader education of our children is sincerely appreciated! Please contact me if you have any thoughts for the future of the Elementary Spanish Program or the relationships within the community and the school districts. ¡Gracias!

In this issue: Bienvenidos 2008-2009 New Curriculum: Viva el Español Celebrating the Holiday Season Teacher's Corner: Welcome Shana Alaniz Teacher Training at ESP Thank You to our Contributors Late Pick-up Procedure

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New Curriculum: Viva el Español

By Hanne Brondum

ESP Spanish classes are off to a good start. The new curriculum, Viva el Español, has been implemented in all classes. Teachers are well supported as the material provides a lesson plan for each class. Viva el Español is a complete system that not only guarantees consistency between the classes but also between the levels. ESP offers 6 levels of Spanish, from Auditory I to Spanish Literature, and classes for kindergarteners through 5th graders. ESP teachers are able to cover all levels using Viva el Español System A & System B. Each System consists of 26 lessons, and each lesson provides material for 3-4 classes.

6 levels of ESP Spanish

• A1Y = Auditory 1 Young for the youngest beginners
• A1O = Auditory 1 Old for the “older” beginners
• A2 = Second-year Spanish for young students
• R&W = Reading & Writing for students with prior experience
• R&W/SL = Reading & Writing/Spanish Literature or Advanced Reading & Writing

SL = Spanish Literature

All students have a workbook. The YO book is for non readers, the Blue Workbook for A1Y and A2, and the Red Workbook for R&W and R&W/SL. For each lesson taught, the workbooks provide 4 pages of supportive activities. Please remind your children to bring their workbooks to each class.

Feel free to ask your teacher about how you can support the learning process. Homework is not mandatory. However, those students who consistently complete the homework will be rewarded by significantly advancing their Spanish language skills. This semester’s Spanish classes cover up to 6 lessons in the different Systems. Please ask your child’s teacher about how you can use the material at home to support the language learning process.

Viva el Español consists of lesson planner cards, teacher resources (flashcards), cultural arts & crafts ideas, assessments, and additional exercises for fast learners. The material is communicatively based, meaning that vocabulary is presented in context. The dialogs are taught through repetitive listening and speaking. Teachers are encouraged to introduce the dialogs by using puppets, which serve as an important prop/tool in order to present dialogues, but to adjust the puppets and the body language in accordance with the children’s ages. Most classes follow the same structure:

• Warm-up activity: Songs, poems, rhymes, tongue-twisters, etc.
• Review: Review of already introduced dialogs and vocabulary through repetitive drills, group work, games, workbook activities, etc.
• New vocabulary: Flashcards, posters, etc.
• Model language: New dialogs (puppets) and group activities (e.g. the class divided in two groups)
• TPR: Total physical response (commands practiced in connection with movements), such as sit down, raise your hands, touch the books, jump, walk slowly, etc. This is a great activity to help students regain concentration.
• Wrap-up activity: Song, vocabulary review, line up (each student recites a Spanish word or sentence to the teacher before leaving the class), etc.

Most teachers speak mainly Spanish during class. Teachers limit the vocabulary used and try to reuse the same structures over and over again. Teachers try to avoid translations and instead combine the Spanish language with gestures and body language.

ESP is very proud to provide foreign language learning to elementary school children and we take grand pride in using the most updated curriculum and teaching methods. Parents are welcome to contact the office with any questions, concerns, ideas, or feedback.

You can find more information about the ¡Viva el Español! curriculum at: http://www.wrightgroup.com/family.html?gid=8

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Celebrating the Holiday Season

By Kali Lindner

This time of year is such a wonderful opportunity for families to be together. This year, we encourage you to add some fun traditions from Spain and Latin America to your holiday festivities. Here are just a few ideas:

In Spain and throughout parts of Latin America, people try to eat one grape on each of the twelve strokes of the clock at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Las uvas de la suerte (grapes of luck), if all eaten by the stroke of midnight, ensure a wish be granted to all those who partake. Tip: buy small grapes, preferably without seeds! Good luck!

In Mexico, the main Christmas celebration is called Las Posadas, which refers to processions reenacting Joseph and Mary's search for a place to stay in Bethlehem. The processions begin nine days before Christmas because the original journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem took nine days. Neighbors follow, carrying candles, and singing traditional songs. When they return home, the neighborhood gathers for big parties, where piñatas are strung and filled with peanuts, oranges, tangerines, and sugarcanes. Children are blindfolded and take turns trying to break it open, while the rest of the children sing:

“Dale, dale, dale – no pierdas el tino, porque si lo pierdes, pierdes el camino! Uno, dos, tres!”

“Strike it, strike it, strike it – don’t lose your aim, because if you lose it, you won’t find your way! One, two, three!”

How fun to add a piñata to your celebration at home!

Sweet treats are enjoyed all over the world in times of celebration! Throughout Spanish-speaking countries, el roscón del reyes, a delicious sweet bread in the shape of a large doughnut, is eaten with hot chocolate to celebrate when the Wise Men or ‘Reyes Magos’ come and leave gifts for children. The origin goes back to the round pies that were offered to the God Janus in Roman Empire times. Baked right into the bread is a small figurine, representing baby Jesus. It is "hidden" to symbolize the hiding of the infant from King Herod's troops on the day of Los Santos Inocentes, the Holy Innocents. A recipe to make at home can be found at: http://www.euroresidentes.com/euroresiuk/Recipies/christmas/kings-cake.htm

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Teacher's Corner: Welcome Shana Alaniz

Hola! Me llamo Shana Alaniz (Señora Alaniz). I am teaching an Auditory 1 Young class at Rooney Ranch Elementary and at Stober Elementary. I earned my B.A. in Spanish and Communications, as well as my teaching certification, from the University of Colorado. I have extensive experience working in the education, medical, and non-profit sectors and have developed and taught Spanish language curriculum to children of all ages, including pre-school children.

This is my first year working with the Elementary Spanish Program, and I must say that it has truly been a pleasure! Each ESP member is very dedicated to providing a top-notch Spanish program for the children in every school where we have our program. They are very supportive of the teachers and go out of their way to facilitate teacher training sessions, provide materials and lesson-planning tools, and establish good relationships with the schools, as well as assist with teacher/parent communication.

Regarding the curriculum, I have worked with Viva el Español in the past and am so happy to have the opportunity to be able to use it with the children in our Elementary Spanish Program. Viva el Español provides a wonderful combination of learning activities via speaking, listening, reading, writing, and doing! The constant review of past material prevents the children from forgetting what they learned a week or even a month ago, and provides for a very effective “recycling” of material while the children continue to learn new words and concepts. It is also a very progressive curriculum, so that in the upcoming years, your child can continue learning where he or she left off the previous year.

It is a joy to be able to work with the children in the classrooms. They are so eager to learn (and learn so very quickly!) and make each class fun and enlightening for me. It is also great to see all of the parent interest and involvement and to have parents visit and participate in our classes; I love that and, more importantly, the kids love it! Thank you to the Elementary Spanish Program for the opportunity to teach for the Program, and thank you to the parents and children for making teaching such a great experience for me!

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Teacher Training at ESP

Our teachers go through extensive teacher-training prior to teaching for ESP. Our main focus for each session incorporates the following:

1. How to motivate children and introduce Spanish into their world
2. Effective classroom management
3. Age-appropriate teaching approaches (Direct Association, Total Physical Response)
4. Lesson Structure
5. How to prepare for a lesson
6. Mini-teaching
7. Lluvia de Ideas (Sharing classroom ideas)
8. Specific meetings for each Curriculum level(Viva el Español.)

Apart from the initial training, ESP also provides continuous training for our teachers (each month) on various specific topics of interest, as well as an opportunity to get together and share ideas.

We currently have 86 teachers (including substitutes). We feel very lucky to have created such a large community of people who share the same passion for languages and other countries, and who love sharing it with others.

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We appreciate your support

In an effort to keep tuition as low as possible, we accept donations of goods and services from businesses and organizations. ESP thanks the following individuals and companies for their generous support:

Classroom Parent Volunteers - all of them!

Dream Dinners for donating gift certificates for our Teacher Appreciation Training

ESP Computer Maintenance & Repair - Joe Barger

ESP Web site Design, Maintenance, and Upgrades - Dean Garyet

If you know of local groups that might be interested in donating services or directly funding ESP classes, please let us know.

Thank you!

ESP Wish List

• VCR/DVD player
• Video Camera
• Stuffed animals
• TWISTER game
• Movies or cartoons in Spanish on VCR/DVD
• Books in Spanish
• Spanish/ English Dictionaries
• Shelves, filing cabinets

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Late Pick-up Procedure

Please note that all classes end at the scheduled time. In order to avoid your child experiencing anxiety and scheduling conflicts for our teachers, we’d like to remind you of our late pick-up procedure. In the rare case where you are not able to pickup your child on-time, contact your child’s teacher directly. If you are more than 10 minutes late, you will be charged $5 for each additional minute. If you are consistently late in picking up your child, he/she may be subject to withdrawal from the program.

Thanks for your cooperation!