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Spanish: Grades 1-8
All Yorkville Students with Foreign Language Spanish
By: Lilly Bryant
¡Hola Familias de Yorkville!
My name is Lilly Bryant and this will be my 13th year in education. I have been the Spanish teacher at Yorkville and Raymond Schools for the last three years. I am excited to be joining the Yorkville Family full time as the K-8 Spanish teacher! This is an extremely exciting opportunity for not only myself, but also for the students at Yorkville.
As a K-8 Spanish teacher, my goal is to teach the Spanish language, but also to teach students about the Spanish Culture! These goals will be met through the five goal areas of the American Council for Teaching Foreign Language (ACTFL). The five goal areas (or 5 C’s) are: communication, culture, connections, comparisons, and communities. We will cover these areas through reading, writing, speaking and listening activities. These skills will be presented to students in a fun, engaging, and age appropriate way.
According to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, language learning has been shown to improve a student’s cognitive function, including but not limited to:
- Enhanced Problem Solving Skills
- Improved Verbal and Spatial Abilities
- Improved Memory Function
- Enhanced Creative Thinking Capacity
- Better Memory
- More Flexible and Creative Thinking
- Improved Attitude Toward the Target Language and Culture
Research has shown that the cognitive benefits of learning a second language have been shown to help expand student vocabulary in their native language, produce higher standardized test scores, and higher academic performance at the college level.
There are many benefits to learning a second language! I am so excited that our students have this opportunity, and I am looking forward to starting our Spanish language journey in September!
You may already be aware, but providing a foreign language, in this case Spanish, to all of the elementary school students in Yorkville is quite uncommon in this part of the state. There are very few schools who have such an opportunity. We believe this will help push students academically and provide them with greater opportunities in their futures.
¡Hasta Pronto!
Lilly Bryant
Foster, K. M., & Reeves, C. K. (1989). Foreign Language in the Elementary School (FLES) improves cognitive skills. FLES News, 2(3), 4.
Armstrong, P. W., & Rogers, J. D. (1997). Basic skills revisited: The effects of foreign language instruction on reading, math, and language arts. Learning Languages, 2(3), 20-31.
Cade, J. M. (1997). The foreign language immersion program in the Kansas City, Missouri Public Schools, 1986-1996 [Abstract]. Dissertation Abstracts International -A 58(10), 3838.
World Readiness Standards: Learning Languages
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