Sarah: Amigos is a two-way immersion school for students from J-K through eighth grade. The mission and vision of our school is to graduate young people who are fully bilingual, biliterate and multicultural.

Caroline: [speaking Spanish]

Caroline: Authentic biliteracy means that you navigate the language as a literate human being, not that you know how to go to a train station or a restaurant and order food. It means that students feel
confident, reading, writing, communicating, expressing themselves in both languages.

Student: [speaking Spanish]

Caroline: Both languages have equal footing and equal power. So you’re not learning Spanish as a foreign language, you’re learning Spanish as a language of instruction as you learn English as a language of instruction.

Teacher: [speaking Spanish]

Student: Plantas.

Teacher: Plantas. So we’re studying about plants.

Sarah: We have a model that is 80 percent Spanish in the early grades.

Teacher: [speaking Spanish]

Student: [speaking Spanish]

Teacher: [speaking Spanish]

Student: [speaking Spanish]

Sarah: With 20 percent of instructional time in English, and as they go throughout the years, that model shifts to 50 percent instructional time in Spanish, and 50 percent in English.

Luis: Amigos is a really good place, because everyone is speaking Spanish around you, so that makes you motivated to speak Spanish.

Sarah: There’s a lot of research around two-way immersion and the benefits of speaking multiple languages. In my mind, the benefits are cognitive, social, and economic.

Vionette: There’s all kinds of different benefits that have been researched about the vocabulary that you build in two languages as opposed to just one. And how flexible and malleable your brain is. To me, it’s more about humanity and how we are able to step in somebody else’s shoes and see the world how they see it.

Clark: I like learning two languages, because if I go somewhere that has another languages they might sort of understand you a little bit.

Teacher: [speaking Spanish] greatest common factor.

Marta: They know from the beginning that we have different kind of people, that they speak different languages, so it’s not only you, your country, your language.

Class: [singing in Spanish]

Noelle: I learned Spanish as a teenager, so I wasn’t a young child, and it wasn’t part of my family, and I always tell people, the world opened up to me, and not even in a way of like I could get so many jobs, but just I know more about the world, and I’m able to talk to more people and go more places and understand things that would be impossible if I didn’t speak Spanish.

Sarah: For most of our teachers being bilingual has impacted their personal life in a significant way. When they really bring that with them here, and help inspire the young people.

Lamaya: Over the years I’ve gone through doubts of like, “Oh, well, I don’t know that much Spanish, so maybe I’m not exactly bilingual. But now as I’ve gotten older, I’ve embraced my culture and who I am, and I’m like, “I’m bilingual, because I speak Spanish and I speak English, and I am open to any culture.”

Sarah: To hear the students recognize the benefits tells me that we’re doing the right thing. We want them to feel that they can leave Amigos and go out into the world and meet new people, and visit new places and have a world perspective about life, which I think is really crucial in this day and age for our young people.

Schools That Work

Amigos School