The Ripon Unified School District has a goal of ensuring that all students are college and career ready.
This includes the English learners.
Trustees are looking at two courses designed to develop language, literacy and cultural skills of Heritage Learners of the Spanish language at Ripon High.
Spanish for Heritage Learners I would be for those students whose home language is Spanish. This would be made available to those possessing the basic interpersonal communication skills of the language but are limited in reading, writing, and understanding the cultural aspects.
This course would offer a total on nine unites while covering the five ‘C’s’ of the language – communication, cultures, connections, comparisons, and communities.
Spanish for Heritage Learners I is also designed to help develop a cultural understanding of Spanish speakers as well as “a cognitive academic language proficiency in Spanish,” according to the course description.
Spanish for Heritage Learners II is the intermediate course.
“This course prepares students for the requirement of higher level Advanced Placement Spanish courses,” the course description said.
Students would also continue to work on their communication and comprehension while acquiring the formal knowledge of grammatical structure along with vocabulary necessary to continue to learn strategies to further develop these skills.
Spanish for Heritage Learners II, in addition, can help students gain further confidence by using Spanish to express their own thoughts on social and academic themes.
The course description said: “They will interact with other speakers of the language, understand oral and written messages, and make oral and written presentations.
“They will also reflect on language variations, and understand material presented on a variety of topics related to contemporary events and issues in Spanish speaking communities.”
Students in Spanish for Heritage Learners II could continue to develop their awareness and understanding of Spanish and Latin America culture, including language variation, customs, geography, history and current events.