• Standards

    Standard 1: Students will be able to use a language other than English for communication. 
    Standard 2: Students will develop cross-cultural skills and understanding.

    Spanish Beginning 1

    Students will spend class time engaged in:

    • Listening and speaking activities
    • Scaning through authentic readings
    • Writing notes
    • Grammar

    The topics covered in this course include:

    1. Personal identification and description
    2. School
    3. Leisure activities and sports
    4. Food and meal taking
    5. Family
    6. Shopping and clothing

    *Participation in class activities is a major component of the child's grade.

      Spanish Beginning 2

     Emphasis continues to be placed on :

    • Listening activities
    • Speaking situations: - providing and obtaining information, expressing personal feelings

      persuasion and socialization

    • Scaning through authentic readings
    • Writing notes
    • Gammar 

    The topics covered in this course include:

    1. House and home
    2. Vacation and weather
    3. Travel
    4. Health and body
    5. Community
    6. Ordering authentic hispanic food
    7. Movies and television
    8. The environment

    *Participation in class activities continues to be a major component of the child's grade. At the end of this course, students will be taking the New York State FLACS Exam in Foreign Language.

    *Students will earn credit by passing BOTH the class and the FLACS proficiency exam.

  •  Curriculum Hispanic Heritage

     

    In recent years East Ramapo has found itself enrolling an ever-increasing number of students of Hispanic background.  Since it is a relatively new development, a plan has been created this year for how to best meet the needs of these students in regard to their study of a second language and indeed improvement of their ELA skills.  Previous school years these students were being placed in language classes with English speaking students who were learning Spanish for the first time.  The Beginning 1 classes are geared towards teaching rudimentary vocabulary and grammar to non-native speakers of Spanish.  Placing a Native/Heritage Speaker in such a class was tantamount to placing an English speaking student in a Beginning ESL class. 

    During the Staff Professional Development Day on January 13th, the CRMS foreign Language and PoMS/CRMS ESL Depts. explored options for students who are native speakers of Spanish (or Heritage Language Learners).  I quote from the North Carolina Standard Course of Study in defining a Heritage Language Learner.

       "According to Guadalupe Valdés (2000), the term Heritage Language Speakers/Learners is used to refer to students who:

     are raised in a home where a language other than English is spoken,

    • understand and/or speak the heritage language: and
    • are to some degree bilingual in English and in the heritage language."

     The students that we have been placing in Spanish Beginning 1 classes come from a variety of different groupings.  They may be:

     immigrants who speak primarily Spanish but may have varying degrees of education,

    • first or second generation bilinguals who have varying degrees of proficiency in English and Spanish, or
    • students born in the U.S. who are English dominant, understand Spanish fluently, but have limited literacy skills.

     By offering these students a course for native speakers we can address the issues of language maintenance, improvement of literacy skills in Spanish and therefore transferring those skills to English, and cultural awareness. -Sherri Nahum/Spanish Teacher CRMS