Spanish Immersion School?
Okay, so picking out schools for my son is still like 3 years away, but I was thinking that sending him to a language immersion school would give him a head start on life, however, I was reading about the immersion school in my area and they instruct in spanish 100% of the time! So although I want my son to learn spanish, how is he supposed to learn to read and write in english? I just thought they would teach both simultaneously. Can someone provide some insight to how this works?
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Nguyen, I was right with you until you brought the government into the picture. Perhaps some immersion schools are that, but most are just there to learn another language. Since Spanish is one of the most spoken languages in the U.S. besides English, being bilingual in Spanish and English isn't a bad thing.
I taught in a Spanish immersion kindergarten class in a public school. Now I don't know how it works in a full-on language immersion school like what you're talking about, but in our program, it was only up through 3rd grade because it's easier for a child to become fluent in a second language if it's before the age of 8. The program started in preschool and at that age, it was 100% in Spanish. In kindergarten, it was like 85%/15%, which is what I taught. By third grade, it was about 90% English/10% Spanish.
It is true that full immersion is the best way to learn a language, especially for very young children. They do still learn to read and write in English although they first start learning in the other language to do so. The development of language is quite complex but because the brain is making those connections in the second language, it will be easier to learn reading and writing in the primary language. It would take an essay to explain it all here. You definitely need to go talk to the school and find out what their process is, what their success rate is, and all that.
Immersion is the only way to become fluent in a language. And being bilingual helps you understand your first language better because you understand the functions of words/the parts of language. Therefore, it becomes easy to know the differences between for example were, where, and we're. That being said Spanish immersion schools are a spinoff of the Democrats' agenda to Mexicanize children and make them pro- illegal immigrant. I think a French (or other language) immersion would be better.
I personally recommended Nicaragua Spanish School for crash course in Spanish. That they are very flexible in arranging courses and even some courses you can tailor made according to your needs. That they have on line learning facilities available.
Honestly the best way for your question to be answered is to call the school you are looking at and ask. But with what you said it would lead me to believe that spanish would be an additional class (like how art and PE are seperate from each other).
However, personally, i wouldn't go to a school like that. I would want to have a child lean to write and read in english first, and have it down before moving on.