Springhurst Students Soak Up Spanish

Jacqueline Laracuenta visits all six second-grade classes in Springhurst each day, pushing into each room with a rousing "Ola!" and immediately taking charge. The students quickly reply in Spanish and scramble for the rug as she wastes no time diving into the lesson. Not a word of English is heard from either teacher or student for the next quarter-hour. Instead, Laracuenta sings songs, plays games, and has the children talk to one another in Spanish

At the beginning of this school year, Dobbs Ferry's Springhurst Elementary School debuted a new foreign language program in their second grade classes. According to Springhurst Principal Doug Berry, The Foreign Language in Elementary School (FLES) program is an attempt at "addressing the need to expand our students' horizons in a growing world for the 21st Century." The program consists of a 15-minute immersion in the Spanish language every day of the week, giving the children 75 minutes a week of Spanish language instruction.

Trying to teach-second graders a foreign language in 15 minute chunks is an imposing proposition, but FLES instructor Laracuenta, who had spent the last seven years filling a similar role in Hastings, was up to the challenge.

"At the beginning I was a little like, hmmm, how am I going to do this?" Laracuanta said. "But they pick up things so easily. Fifteen minutes have done wonders with them. I mean it's just very, very impressive how much they've learned."

Now that the program has been in place for nine months, everyone is thrilled with the results. "I am amazed, as a teacher, to see how much they've learned since September," said second-grade teacher, Barbara Guglielmo.

Principal Berry agrees. "To see kids who just eight or nine months ago had little or no instruction in Spanish language being able to follow instructions and converse with one another in Spanish… is a pretty amazing thing," he said.

Laracuenta speaks quickly to the children, expecting them to keep up--and keep up they do, as she uses a variety of home-made teaching aids to help drive the lessons home.

"Unfortunately for this age level, there isn't any age-appropriate curriculum, games, or flash cards, or anything like that," Laracuenta said. "I make my own materials. I make my own books, my own flash cards, my own games."

One of Laracuenta's biggest obstacles is making sure each child is engaged as the class progresses. "Each lesson is delivered to address a different learning style of each child," she explained. "Our school is an inclusive school, and therefore I try to incorporate a lot of different activities and different things that get kids all at different levels of learning engrossed and involved in the lesson."

The administration plans to add third-grade instruction next year, with fourth and fifth-grade instruction rolling out each year as the current second-graders advance until the program is up and running in grades two through five.

"One of the things we're committed to as a district is always looking for opportunities to improve our programs and offerings for students," Berry explained. "We feel strongly that by giving them a foundation in studying a foreign language, we're giving them the skills regardless of what language they're going to pursue at the middle school, high school, or college level."

The program got off the ground with financial support from the Dobbs Ferry Schools Foundation, and has enjoyed tremendous support from administration and parents alike. Berry hopes it will become a permanent fixture in the Dobbs Ferry School System. "It's part of our program now; it's what we do," he said. "And that's a good thing."

And as a teacher, Guglielmo also hopes that it remains a part of the District's curriculum. "Honestly, for me, it's a nice break for the kids," she said. "It hasn't been an interruption for my class; in fact they actually love it."