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Breaking barriers

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Immersion program helps students find common language, success at Evergreen Elementary

Teachers at Evergreen Elementary have changed their entire approach to instruction since Shelton School District implemented a dual-language program there about eight years ago.

They hoped to better serve the school's Hispanic students, who make up more than half of its population, while at the same time giving all students an opportunity to become bilingual at the most opportune time in their lives.

Parents, teachers and administrators say the results have been promising.

"The kids have made fabulous adjustments," said first-grade teacher Sue Harris. "They tend to roll with the flow; it's amazing to see them read in Spanish as well as they do in English, and vice versa."

Harris teaches all of her students in English, while in another classroom a second group is being taught entirely in Spanish. These students switch classes after their lunch period to be taught in a different language for the rest of the day.

Students in every class represent both languages in approximately equal proportion, said Principal Stephen Warner. The experience immerses students, giving them as much exposure to it as possible and forcing them to learn and apply that knowledge to be successful in every subject they're taught.

"There is a lot of brain research supporting the fact bilingual people who go through these programs have much more mental flexibility," he said. "They problem solve using two different languages, and tend to excel academically above a model language student."

WASL scores for fifth-grade Hispanic students at the school between the 2005-2006 and 2008-2009 school years have jumped 28 percent in reading, and 27.6 percent in math. Science scores for all fifth-graders have leaped by 32 percent in that time.

According to Warner, the program has helped lower the achievement gap in Olympic Middle School between Hispanic and Caucasian students to approximately 15 percent in reading and 18 percent in math. This is much lower than the state as a whole, measuring a 26 percent gap in reading and 29 percent in math.

To make this progress possible, teachers at Evergreen are trained to use the Guided Language Acquisition Design (GLAD) model of instruction, focusing on hand gestures, role-playing, charades, songs and games.

Heather Byington, who teaches the fourth grade in Spanish, said her students practice important vocabulary words they will need before the beginning of each lesson. Photographs, sketches, models and other visuals further assist her in communicating with her students and help keep them engaged.

Not only is this process effective, Byington said, but it teaches students at all stages in their language development how to cooperate and help each other.

"It's so refreshing to see students of all backgrounds and languages playing with each other and becoming friends," she said. "Mutual understanding, cultural respect and valuing each other's strengths and diversity is something children really benefit from."

Administrators have developed new programs in the district as students aged, so they and future generations can continue benefiting from the dual-language instruction after they leave Evergreen.

Within the next few years, Warner said, the hope is to offer it at every grade level, from students' first experience in preschool to when they receive their diploma and set out seeking employment and higher education.

"We're giving students in Shelton a gift no one can ever take away from them," he said. "We're taking students who came from homes where they live in poverty or don't speak the English language and giving them skills to be productive members of society.

Fifth-grade students interviewed last week said learning in the school's unique atmosphere had become second nature. It has helped 10-year-old Reyna Pacheco speak with her family members in Mexico, while allowing 11-year-old Vivian Vazquez to assist a student at the school who came there with no prior English instruction.

Getting to where they are didn't happen overnight, but the students said they were appreciative of the opportunity being given to them.

"It will be interesting to see what happens when they move up to the sixth grade," said Harris. "They won't be beginning Spanish speakers, and if they continue to use it."



Copyright 2010 Shelton-Mason County Journal, Shelton, Washington. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from SmallTownPapers, Inc.

© 2010 Shelton-Mason County Journal Shelton, Washington. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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