Spanish Program
¡Hola! ¡Bienvenidos! Yo soy la señora Rivas, I’m the Spanish teacher at St. Paschal Baylon School. Ven; dejame hablarte de nuestro programa de español, es muy interesante. Come; let me explain you about our Spanish program. It’s very intersting!
St. Paschal Baylon School it’s very proud to have School Wide Spanish Program from Kindergarten to 8th grade. Since 2005 we have been pioneers innovating a practical inter-curriculum Spanish Program giving our students the opportunity to experience not just learning a second language but also the music, the traditions and the rich Catholic faith through the eyes and souls of the vibrant Hispanic community in our Country but specially in California and in our own St. Paschal Baylon Community.
Our Spanish program begins in Kindergarten, where students learn colors, numbers, days of the week, etc. together with songs, games and traditions like “Día de reyes”. For elementary grades 1st to 5th grades, I devolved a workbook based on National Standards for Learning a Second Language. Students get weekly Spanish classes and since I’m the teacher school wide; the continuation of the program give our student’s confidence to speak freely in their second language, Spanish.
For the Jr. High students (6th, 7th, and 8th grades) the Spanish program include 2 hours per week of instruction, this give our students the ability to develop the necessary tools to learn a second language and most important the tools to learn how to learn a second language.
Our Jr. High uses the program ¡Viva el Español! by Wright Group/McGraw-Hill. This program is approved by the California Board of Education to follow the State and National Standards for learning a second language. The program is divided in 3 books for each grade called ¡Hola! , ¿Que tal? and ¡Adelante! Books are enrich with technology, each class has an assigned vocabulary which is introduce to students with the use of different medias like PowerPoint or Live images using our Elmo cameras or Media Movies developed in our school. Also the students can find help for their homework and daily study in our school website where our weekly Spanish lessons are posted.
Each grade has also it’s own focus. Six grade is: “El año de las oraciones” and we concentrate in learning Spanish prayers. Seventh grade is: “El año de la lectura” and we concentrate in reading level appropriate Spanish books which are in our library as part as our Reading Renaissance Program, which means these books also count with their Spanish computer reading test. Finally Eight grade is: “El año de la música” and students enjoy listening and learning modern and traditional music in Spanish.
Yes, learning a second language is challenging, but we are making it fun an easy for our students. So you are welcome to say: ¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás? in our campus and you will hear ¡Bien, gracias! with a big smile.