Nowlan says he traveled to Puerto Rico with Amigos last year and attended a school where he was able to communicate in Spanish.
Carolann M. Nowlan, a native English speaker, says she doesn't expect her son Jason to become completely fluent of Spanish. Nowlan says she enrolled her son in the program so that he can "get [his] feet wet in the experience of learning a language."
Nowlan said that Jason experienced "a bit of frustration," when he started the program in kindergarten, but she saw that as "normal." He has no problem after second grade, she said.
Skills for the Workplace
Jason now talks with Spanish-speaking friends in Spanish, Nowlan said, adding that she hopes he'll be able to communicate with Spanish-speaking coworkers later on.
"When he goes out to get a job, I'm hoping he'll have experience [speaking Spanish]," Nowlan says.
Giroux, the spokesperson for the Cambridge schools, agrees that the program's goal of educating bilingual students will be a boon when they reach the increasingly international job market.
"If you speak more than one language, you're way ahead of the game," Giroux says.
"Everybody needs bilingual people," Sandra Canas says. She attributes part of her success in this country to her knowledge of both Spanish and English, and she says she wants to give her son the same advantage.
A Recent Innovation
The Amigos program started in 1986 with two kindergarten classes. Since then, it has added a grade each year and now reaches sixth grade. There are now two classes in for each grade level from kindergarten through fourth and two fifth-sixth multigrade classes. With money from a recent federal grant, the school plans to extend the module to a half-day program in seventh and eighth grades, Casabon says.
With the beginning of the Amigos program, we've had fewer [Spanish-speaking] students taking ESL [English as a second language]." Casabon says. "Most parents choose either Amigos or bilingual."
The traditional program, transitional bilingual education, taught students mostly in their native language, and spent part of the day teaching them English. The city's Spanish transitional bilingual program has 151 students.
Students who choose to take English as a Second Language are put into English-speaking classrooms and pulled out for a short time each day for specific English instruction.
The Amigos program offers Spanish-speaking students an intermediate between these two alternatives. The half of the time spent on Spanish makes sure students won't be "in the dark" as Canas puts it, while the English half of the program is a total immersion which virtually forces students to learn English quickly.
Giroux says that while he did not have specific data, he believes that Spanish-speaking students learn English more quickly in the Amigos program than in traditional programs.
With the current focus on multiculturalism, Giroux calls Amigos "a fantastic opportunity to become a global community."