Next Austin Bilingüe Meeting – Wednesday, April 23

The next meeting of the Austin Bilingüe group has been set for Wednesday, April 23 from 7-9 pm.

SPEAKER: Leticia Smith, Founder of Risas y Sonrisas – a provider of Spanish language teaching tools for kindergarten and elementary school children. In addition to Leticia’s presentation we will be discussing the next steps in the creation of the dual language school which is at the center of the group’s mission.

LOCATION: La Madeleine / Arboretum

DATE/TIME: Wednesday, April 23, 2008. 7-9 pm.

RSVP click HERE

March 26 Meeting Notes

The Austin Bilingue group met on Wed, March 26 to continue discussing the opportunities facing our community in the area of full-immersion bilingual education. The meeting featured a special speaker, Maria Teresa Aldrete, founder of Eduspark. Tere gave us a wonderful overview of the educational tools that her company has developed – in essence a one stop shop for all the curriculum needed to operate a bilingual elementary school, all the way down to the minute-by-minute lesson plans for the teachers on a daily basis.

The tools are highlighted by multimedia software that the company has developed that makes use of a high tech interactive white board that allows students to come up to the white board and interact with the multimedia software using a special pen. The multimedia software includes lessons on history, science, the arts, humanities and every other topic you might expect is needed in an elementary.

Tere expressed her interest in helping Austin Bilingue launch a bilingual school as she herself has been involved in the creation of a school in the past, a highly regarded school in Monterrey, Mexico called Liceo de Monterrey. To this end, one of my next steps with Eduspark will be to visit schools in Monterrey which have adopted their tools (I wish I could go to the ones in Spain but that would prove a bit difficult!). These include the Liceo itself as well as another highly regarded school called Colegio Mirasierra. In particular, I’m interested in seeing how Eduspark’s technology is used by teachers in a real classroom. More to come on this once I have had a chance to go down to Monterrey…

Si tiene dos lenguas, tiene dos almas

On March 4 I was driving home from work listening to NPR on the radio when I caught an interview with Geraldo Rivera. Geraldo was on the radio promoting his latest book called “His Panic“. A book that talks about the recent “panic” associated with hispanic immigration into the US. In the book he attempts to diffuse many of the myths associated with this latest wave of immigrants coming into the US. During the interview he addresses a myth that has to do with bilingualism – the myth that states that if we become a dual language nation we will loose our national identity. On the contrary, referencing a quote from his Puerto Rican father, he states “Si tiene dos lenguas, tiene dos almas” – alluding to how a person enriches his/her life by having command of two languages.

Check out the interview yourself and let me know what you think!

Jardín de Niños Interlingua launches in Austin

Recently I learned about Adriana Rodriguez, founder of the Jardín de Niños Interlingua, a Spanish immersion day care in South-West Austin that just opened its doors. Adriana shares the belief that elementary education in Austin should feature bilingual immersion and she is on her way to make that a reality with her day care program. You can read a nice article from the Austin American Statesman that talks about Adriana and her goals.

Next Austin Bilingüe Meeting – Wednesday, March 26

The next meeting of the Austin Bilingüe group has been set for Wednesday, March 26 from 7-9 pm.

SPEAKER: Maria Teresa Aldrete, Founder of Eduspark – a software company that offers a holistic, bilingual learning system for K-12.

LOCATION: Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, Board Room. [MAP]

DATE/TIME: Wednesday, March 26, 2008. 7-9 pm.

PLEASE RSVP  by clicking HERE and registering to attend the event.

My visit to the Austin International School

On Friday, February 22nd I visited the Austin International School in order to learn more about their curriculum in the area of bilingual education. The Austin International School, formerly known as the Lycée Français d’Austin has approximately 120 students and goes from pre-K through 5th grade. The school also now positions itself as a trilingual French/English/Spanish school rather than simply a French school. It’s curriculum is primarily based on that approved by the French Ministry of Education so that element of its origins is still well cemented in the school even though the curriculum roughly breaks down into 60% French, 20% Spanish, and 20% English instruction. Therefore, I would characterize the school as a French school that offers Spanish immersion as an added element. That said, from my own research online and visiting schools across Austin I can say that it is the most progressive language immersion school that I have encountered in this area of Texas.

While at the school I met with one of the French and one of the Spanish kindergarten teachers. Both of them were native speakers of their respective languages. This was a very positive discovery given that it is the only school that I have visited in Austin where this is the case. Most other elementary schools I’ve been to (private or public) have native English speakers that have a college degree in Spanish and, maybe, some experience living in a Spanish speaking country. The latter being generally the best indicator of their ability to speak the language fluently and without strong English accents. Having teachers that can speak fluently and without an English accent is, I believe, a key element in being to have a proper immersion experience.

Overall I was quite impressed with the quality of the facilities, the curriculum, and the teachers. My only wish is that the school was more balance between French and Spanish. If the school were to achieve this balance then one could truly call it a trilingual immersion program able to meet the needs of those wanting their kids to achieve complete fluency in Spanish; with the added bonus that they would be fluent in French as well!

Clinton and Obama on Bilingual Education

On Feb 21 Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton debated on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin and provided proof that the Austin Bilingue project is not only timely but highly relevant!

The topic of bilingual education came up and both candidates agreed that having multilingual population would be an asset to the nation. In addition, the debate was broadcast jointly by CNN and Univision and featured Jorge Ramos of Univision asking questions in Spanish. This, in addition to Obama and Clinton’s comments, is a strong reemphasis that our nation will soon be a dual language nation and that we must prepare our kids accordingly.

For a transcript of the debate go to http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/21/debate.transcript/index.html and search for the term “bilingual”. That will take you to their comments on bilingual education.

AISD to Restart Bilingual Immersion Program

On January 2, 2008 the Austin Independent School District (AISD) announced that they intended to restart a bilingual immersion program that had been tested in 2003 but was shut down due to budget issues and concerns from some people in the community that kids weren’t performing well in English and that they were at risk of being illiterate in both English and Spanish due to a lack of emphasis on either language. This last objection is something that has become an urban legend even though well conducted and scientifically valid research studies have proven that after an initial delay in mastery of both languages compared to how a kid would perform with a single language, bilingual kids actually perform as well or better than monolingual kids in standardized tests that test for the mastery of the single common language.

This myth of kids becoming illiterate in both languages if they are taught bilingually is commonly used by naysayers of bilingual education and is something that troubles me.   As a proof point of how this notion is absurd I can offer myself as well as most, if not all, of my fellow alumni that graduated from the American High School in Mexico City, a full immersion bilingual school.  All of us are not only fully fluent in reading, writing, and speaking both languages and, in my case at least, outperformed most English-only kids when we arrived in college in the US and took English 101!  In my case I recall my first few days of English 101 and being shocked at how bad the English composition skills were among most (not all) of my classmates who were English-only speakers.  To be fair here, though, one must be very careful on what is meant by “bilingual education”.  As it relates to Austin Bilingue, bilingual education means teaching kids so they can obtain mastery of both languages.  In many other circles, however, bilingual education means teaching non-English speakers in their native language until the point that they can achieve fluency in English and enter the mainline English-only curriculum.  But more on this topic later…

Anyway, I applaud AIDS’ efforts.  Read the article and let me know what you think!

http://www.statesman.com/search/content/news/stories/local/01/02/0102duallanguage.html

Wed, Feb 27 – 7 pm: First Get Together of the Austin Bilingue Group

The Austin Bilingüe group will get together over coffee for the first time on Wednesday, February 27 at 7:00 pm at The Madeleine in the Arboretum on 183 near the corner with Great Hills Trail. We will be discussing our common interests in bilingual education for our kids and starting the process of building the critical mass needed to move the Austin Bilingüe project forward!

If you can make it please RSVP at the link below:

http://www.evite.com/app/publicUrl/RJQBUPLGOSVJCGXHLALG/austinbilingue

Thanks!

-Erin

Risas y Sonrisas – Spanish for Kids in Austin

Yesterday I was referred to a wonderful Spanish instruction program/methodology offered by Risas y Sonrisas of Austin. Leticia Smith of Mexico City is the founder of the company and she is trained in the well known and respected Accelerated Learning teaching methodology. I exchanged emails with Leti and discovered that there are quite a few Spanish language instructors in Austin that use her tools and methodology. In addition, she offers kits that educators (and even parents) can buy to teach Spanish to their own students.

The referral to Risas y Sonrisas came from Integral Learning Systems, another company in Austin that uses the accelerated learning principles for teaching spanish.