It’s March, the month (for many parents) of preschool and kindergarten registration.
And if your family is like ours, schools have begun their bombardment on social media, and flooded your mailbox with advertisements. We have two children in the preschool age group and this month alone we collected 5 mailings from different preschools. (One of which was on the other side of the state!)
Regardless of how many choices crowd your inbox or mailbox, it can be difficult to make a decision, especially if you’re considering a dual language immersion program for your child.
We’re here to give parents a leg up.
Below you’ll find a list of questions to ask of the dual language immersion programs as you consider options for your child. While open houses are a great first step, we’d encourage you to ask for a program tour, which will give you deeper insights into the program and school culture and afford you the opportunity to ask these questions:
1. What immersion model do you follow?
(specifically: how many instructional minutes are allocated for each language at the
elementary level? the secondary level?) The visual at right explains the research based models our organization supports.
2. How do teachers in the immersion program and the traditional program interact?
What does the school due to encourage students to interact across these programs? Schools can encourage teacher teaming across languages by pairing new immersion teachers with a seasoned English program mentor teachers. Students from different strands can be integrated during specials and school events to encourage friendships across languages.
High quality teaching begins with high levels of teacher language proficiency. Programs should be aiming to help students to meet grade level expectations regardless of the language of instruction. Check out our language proficiency demystified resource (part of the informed parent guide) for more information on student language proficiency.
4. How do school leaders raise the status of the minority language in their school?
A school’s culture educates every bit as much as its curriculum. Evidence of cross-pollination between programs can include: FLES programs, school signage, musical programs, communication, and commitment to upholding the integrity of the immersion model.
5. How much immersion specific professional development do you offer?
Most teacher preparation programs are focused on educational pedagogy for a traditional classroom, offering even multilingual teacher candidates very little immersion specific preparation. Thus, emerging teachers interested in the immersion setting need support, guidance and additional instruction in order to appropriately craft a learning environment unique to the dual language immersion student.
6. What is your approach to bi-literacy development?
This is a complex issue and the strategies advocated in the blog post linked above are indicators that a school makes bi-literacy an important part of its classroom instruction.
We wish you the best in your search for the best fit preschool or kindergarten for your family. If you have any questions regarding addalingua dual language immersion programs, contact us at [email protected].
