Posted on 02/24/2009 4:39:24 PM PST by christianhomeschoolmommaof3
A middle school in Southern California is spending $10,000 a year to teach Advanced Placement Spanish to 35 of its 650 students -- and all but one of them are already fluent in Spanish.
Thirty-four of the kids in the AP class are from Mexico or are the children of Mexican immigrants. They all grew up speaking Spanish at home.
The program -- the only one of its kind in California -- has outraged some critics who say they are concerned that the AP course wastes public resources – including taxpayer dollars – to teach native Spanish speakers how to speak their native language in an American public school.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
But, but...isn’t our elementary school foreign language spending to bring English literacy to Spanish-speaking chil’run....?
I guess we should also put an end to AP english since the majority of students already speak english.
And yet English is our native language.
How much is spent on English for kids who are fluent in English? Knee-jerk report, don’t bight.
It probably takes considerable effort to teach them to speak, read, and write formal Castilian Spanish.
Most don’t really know how to “speak” spanish well enough to do something like write a coherent essay.
Then again, most US citizen students don’t speak English well enough to write a coherent essay either.
Gotta love those teacher’s unions.
They should be mastering English, band English grammar has identical concepts related to good Spanish. Even if these students are “fluent” which, in most cases the mainstream (ignorant) media probably defines as “communicating well in the language,” their level of Spanish may be horrendous. Thus, if the AP Spanish course is well-taught, it can improve both the student’s Spanish and English skills.
Hit the post button without correcting:
They should be mastering English, AND English grammar has identical concepts....
As I posted before, English is the language of this country. For students to be learning AP English is fine. Or for an English speaking student to be learning an AP foreign language is fine. Did you read the whole article? The point of the class was to give Spanish speaking student a good feeling about having an advantage in an AP class. If the students are Spanish speaking wouldn’t resources be better spent in teaching them English.
Thank you both.
I personally remember AP classes in French and Spanish in which there were students fluent in either or both because of their or their families’ native tongues.
And I took AP English.
All back in the 70s.
There ... fixed
Seriously, that would probably do them more good than either Spanish or English (assuming they have learned English fluently by this time).
From the article “Lemon Grove principal Ambler Moss says his school is the only middle school in California to implement the AP class, which he believes will boost the students’ confidence because they already have an edge.”
The MIDDLE school is spending $10,000 a year to teach 35 students to feel good about themselves. You think this is a good use of resources with the deficit in California?
I took ACP English in high school. Humanities and Advanced comp. I speak English.
Spanish is an inflected language, isn’t it?
Lol! I think we both like Latin. Latin served as the base for most of the ROMANnce languages and is excellent in helping to understand a multitude of words in English as well.
Learning other languages is good for the brain...and can be good for the bank account too. ;-)
Even Old English was moderately inflected. ;-)
Actually I think it was a poor choice of phrasing on the part of the principal, as the rest of the article indicates it is primarily for academic reasons.
My only problem here is that this is the only AP class that appears to be available to the students. Personally I believe AP classes in any subject should be available to any student once they have achieved a certain level of proficiency, whether they are in HS or MS.
AP Spanish is not taught solely in Spanish, and it is quite a bit more advanced than typical MS or even HS Spanish, even Span 3.
My heart is on fire after hearing about $900 million to the Palestinians.
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