Immersion is a proven method of educating children by immersing them in a ‘target’ language so they can become bilingual. With Spanish as the second most widely spoken language in the world and a growing Hispanic population, it was evident Spanish would be our target language. We have partnered with add.a.lingua to build and maintain our immersion program.
In an immersion program, the classroom becomes the setting for language acquisition through core subject content instruction and social interactions. Empirical evidence reveals numerous benefits to taking part in an immersion program including:
- academic achievement equal to or greater than monolingual peers
- high degree of proficiency in the immersion language
- increased cross-cultural sensitivity
How it works
Together, English-dominant and Spanish-dominant students, two different cultural and linguistic populations, have much to offer and share with each other. Together, these communities would build intercultural communities of understanding, respect, and love grounded in Catholic values and faith.
Our program begins with a 90/10 Spanish/English instructional split, in order to be fully immersive. The program gradually incorporates more English instruction until an even split between English and Spanish is reached.