Teachers at Reedley school introduce new teaching strategy for dual immersion students

REEDLEY, Calif. (KFSN) -- Students are learning English and Spanish at dual immersion schools across the Valley.

In Reedley, teachers are taking a different approach this year with a new instructional strategy.

Aribel Cazares is a second-grade dual immersion teacher at Alta Elementary School in Reedley.

She only teaches in Spanish. She says the students are confident speaking the language back to her.

This year, a new instructional strategy was added called "cross-linguistic connection."

Instead of students just learning English or just learning Spanish, they learn the two side by side.

"We focus on the similarities and differences between the languages in order for the kids to be able to become proficient in the language," Cazares said.

On the day we visited, they were learning about the prefix "re."

They reinforced what they were learning by adding in matching body movements.

"The aim of the lessons is for students to be able to make the connections between the native language and the target language, and vice versa," Cazares said.

Julianna Villicana speaks English as her first language and is learning Spanish as a second language.

"If I don't know how to say something in my first language, I can use my second language as support," Julianna said.

She says she likes learning Spanish and hopes to use it to her advantage.

"Knowing a second language can help me communicate with people who don't know another language," Julianna said.

Cazares says the cross-linguistic connection isn't so much about learning the concept, but instead being able to identify whether the concept is similar or different in both languages.

She says she hopes students will have a deeper understanding of English and Spanish and move on from her classroom with confidence.

"The end goal is for our students to be able to leave this school being biliterate and feeling confident with the way that they communicate and feeling that they're ready for the world because they're able to read, write and everything in both languages, which, obviously, it's a huge asset," Cazares said.

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