Language Immersion schools?

[scoobers]

Hi Everyone,
DS is just starting pre-school but I'm thinking about the type of school we want to put him in when he starts kindergarten/1st grade.

Does anyone have any experience with language immersion schools to share? Or, do you know of any in your area? (We are also thinking about relocating.)

Thanks!

[ccohenou]

My stepdaughter goes to a public immersion school, in Spanish. We are in Indianapolis, it's a township school. There's also a private immersion school with Spanish and French tracks in town.
She's gone since kindergarten. It seems like a great opportunity, but honestly I have wondered if it is best for her, as she has struggled with picking up reading. It seems like the added layer of language unfamiliarity could only complicate things, yk?
However, the research seems to say that kids in immersion lag in English skills until grade 3 or 4, then catch up and even excel. She's just starting third grade, so we'll have to see.

[Mackenzie]

One of our public schools is a Magnet school with a language focus. They have immersion programs for several languages, I know Spanish and Japanese for sure. My daughter is thinking of transfering there for the Spanish program.

[kittywitty]

All the studies that I have ever seen say that learning other languages are one of the best things that you can do for your child to increase their IQ and brainpower. Not only that, but it's good to expose them to other cultures and languages so that it will be easier for them to expand on them when they are older. I was taught French as a child by my family, as well as English, and it definitely helped me, I believe. And now I am teaching my own children. I would give my left arm for an inexpensive immersion program for my kids, but there aren't any around here.

[jkpmomtoboys]

We have a Spanish Immersion program in our public school system here. People who are in it love it, but in our school, instruction is 90% Spanish in Kindergarten. Then it lessens a bit each year until 5th grade. That was a bit too much Spanish for my ds, I suspected, combined with being in a brand new school environment. But, like I said, it's extremely impacted here and everyone loves it...

Good luck!

[bethwl]

My daughter is about to start a French preschool (it contintues through high school--if we win the lottery). It is completely in French, no English, until they reach Kindergarten and start having Reading in English and in first grade, they also start having American History in English. They have English tutors and reading specialists on staff, but said they almost always tend to be helping foreign national children who struggle with English and don't get it at home. I'm not worried about dd learning English, she has a pretty advanced vocabulary already at age 3 and recognizes letters in words as we read books. I love the idea of immersion language learning, so we'll see how it turns out.

[GearGirl]

We don't have an immersion school or I would send my children, I think it is an amazing opportunity. My nephew went until this year, and he now speaks fluent Spanish. He was struggling with some things so my sister is sending him to a different school this year, but I know she is glad she did it - he will be entering 5th grade, so he went K-4.

[yitlan]

I'm really debating what to do with my oldest next fall and our spanish dual language program is high on my list. I'm also considering homeschooling and the half day homeschool program. I've talked to a few people about it and will be calling a friend of a friend who teaches at the school soon. Still, I'm far from decided. I just feel like it's a great opportunity!

[Mama Shifra]

Originally Posted by scoobers

Does anyone have any experience with language immersion schools to share? Or, do you know of any in your area? (We are also thinking about relocating.)

If you are thinking of relocating to the New York City area, www.insideschools.org has information about "dual language immersion" programs in the New York City public schools, which are for both English and (usually) Spanish speakers to be taught in both languages. This site quotes one mother with a child in a dual language school in New York City:

A mother chose Amistad after looking at 25 other schools. "What it came down to in the end was 'What is it that I cannot give my child?'" this mother says. "I couldn't give her Spanish because I don't speak Spanish." The mother is proud that her second-grade daughter reads, writes and speaks Spanish. (2002)

If you are looking for a French immersion program, the web site http://www.frenchculture.org/educati...immersion.html has a list. If you are looking into Louisiana in particular, a helpful web site is the state-sponsered CODOFIL (Council for the Development of French in Louisiana) at www.codofil.org/english/education.html.

Good luck!
Shifra

[velochic]

My 4 year old dd is in private language immersion school in the US. She started last year in the 3 year old program. She was getting very bored at home and was asking a lot about going to school. We chose this school equally for the language immersion as for its academics (it goes through 12th grade). I read a lot about immersion schools before sending her and I saw many references that said that language immersion schools tend to have great academic programs. The one dd attends seems to.

We are a bilingual family at home (we use OPAL - I speak English and her father speaks Armenian). We also lived abroad when dd was first starting to talk a lot, so this is actually her 4th language exposure. She's very curious about languages already, trying to figure them out. She does speak Spanish (her target language... the school also has French) at school, but they said that we shouldn't expect her to be fluent until the end of this year. She sings a lot in Spanish at home, though. If I ask her a direct question, such as "How do you say..." she'll usually tell me, but is sometimes reluctant to. She is more likely to say something to me in Armenian than Spanish. I guess she just has it in her head that Spanish is for school, not home. They've told us that she'll get over that eventually (but it really doesn't matter because I don't speak Spanish).

I cannot say enough good things about immersion programs that I've seen so far. I've not seen her slow down in her learning because of the extra languages. She prefers English over all of them and prefers we read to her in English. Over the summer, she started sight-reading English words and has started writing them too if I help her with sounding out. She can't read or write with any other languages other than English, but has the colors, shapes, letter names, counting/enumerating, and vocabulary in them, so I think she's coming along fine.

Her school days are 100% in Spanish, btw. Oh, and most big cities have some sort of private, if not public, immersion offering. Try searching using the suggested links.

Good luck!

ETA: I did want to mention that dd's school tends to push academics. For a lot of people, that would be a turn-off. It fits for us, but I thought I'd mention it. I've heard other private LI schools tend to push academics, too. Don't know about public ones.