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The Dual Language Spanish Immersion program begins with 90 percent Spanish and 10 percent English. The percentage changes as the grades increase. By fourth grade, students are learning 50 percent of the time in English and 50 percent of the time in Spanish. The goal of the program is for students to graduate from sixth grade with the ability to speak, read, and write proficiently in both English and Spanish. The second program is our Conversational Spanish. Students learn all content in English, but they engage in 30 minutes of conversational Spanish. The goal of the Conversational Spanish program is for students to reach proficiency in English and develop basic conversational skills in Spanish.

Cesar Chavez Intermediate School offers many special instructional programs that help our students be successful. One of our unique programs is our Dual Language Enrichment Program (DLEP) in Spanish and English. We offer our DLEP students the opportunity to become literate in two languages, and by the time they leave our school, they are bi-literate and bilingual in Spanish and English. Instruction is delivered in English and Spanish by subject. Fifty percent of the instruction is delivered in Spanish and the remaining 50 percent is delivered in English according to applicable subjects (English or Spanish language arts, mathematics, social studies and science). Therefore, we have the 50/50 model, and the bilingual teachers are proficient in both languages.

The Transitional Bilingual Program utilizes Spanish as the primary language of instruction from kindergarten through grade 3. The mission of this program is to transition Spanish-speaking students into mainstream classrooms by the third grade. In kindergarten, 90 percent of the instruction is provided in Spanish and the remaining 10 percent is done in English. As the students matriculate through grades one, two and three, the percentage of Spanish instruction is gradually reduced and English is increased by 10 percent. Afterwards, gradually adhering to the transition of the students to instruction in English, the goals are to facilitate the content classes, to develop their literary abilities, and to get students to become fluent in their own native language. This method will facilitate a transition from the Spanish into English language in a less stressful way for the students.

The Dual Language Immersion Program is based on a two-way immersion educational model. This model stresses the following:

• High academic proficiency in two languages
• High academic achievement
• Mastery of the state’s content standards
• Multiculturalism
• Life skills
• Community service

In the area of language arts, the goal is for students to speak, read, and write fluently in both English and Spanish as measured by the state standardized assessments and teacher-developed assessments.

Students in the program have the same access to the academic core curriculum as those children educated in an English only setting. The benefit is that, in addition, the students receive second language instruction.