Living History Worldwide

For the past few days, you have not really thought much about the COVID-19 outbreak. But earlier this afternoon the state of Kansas announced that their school year is over, and they do not expect any schools to return to finish their school year, and this announcement got to you.

You teach at an inner city school in the midwest. When your students left for break, you did not expect that you would not return to school. But alas, here you are, stuck at home with no indication that you will be back in the classroom any time soon. The thought of your school year being over absolutely breaks your heart. You will not get to say goodbye to them. You will not get to give them a hug and tell them they will be okay. You did not get a chance to send them home with books to read, or activities to do. There are so many more things you wanted to do with them, or say to them.

You know the district you teach for is trying to figure out e-learning activities for students to do, but the reality is not all of your students have access to the technology they need to successfully finish out their fourth grade year and it breaks your heart! Your heart is heavy and you miss them all so much.

Teaching at Home Can be More Beneficial with the Right Resources

Whether you are looking at Spanish curriculum lessons for preschoolers who are now at home instead of in centers or you are looking for options for Spanish curriculum options for older children, there are many times when families are being as creative as possible when it comes to home schooling during a time of pandemic. From Spanish story books being read online by popular authors, athletes, and actors, to week by week Spanish curriculum lessons for preschoolers, many parents are finding a way to continue schooling at home.

Art, science, math, and writing lessons may be more familiar topics to many parents when it comes to helping monitor their school work at home, but Spanish curriculum lessons for preschoolers are not. And in a time when global experiences are more common, it should come as no surprise that Spanish curriculum lessons for preschoolers, elementary, middle, and high schoolers are also an important part of many school days.

Consider some of these facts and figures about the increased need for foreign language instruction, specifically Spanish, in the curriculum offerings in many school districts:

• Education research indicates that it is important to take advantage of the critical time in early development when acquiring language skills comes easily and naturally. A child’s capacity to pronounce unfamiliar, foreign sounds and to absorb new grammar rules, for example, is highly enhanced prior to age six.
• Unfortunately, students in the United States often wait until junior or senior high school for their first exposure to a foreign language curriculum, while many other countries mandate the introduction of foreign language in schools by age eight. This means, of course, that American students only having four years of study versus 10 or 12 years when these lessons are introduced earlier.
• Research also indicates that between ages 8 and 12 children lose the ability to hear and reproduce new sounds as they did when they were younger, making foreign language acquisition not impossible, but more difficult.
• More than two-thirds of the world’s children are bilingual, according to the Summer Institute of Linguistics. In America, however, only 17% of the total population speaks a second language in addition to English.
• Spanish is the official language of 21 countries worldwide, and those countries are home to many exquisite and fun travel destinations.
• Looking toward the future, it has been proven that bilingual employees earn, on average, 20% more per hour than monolingual employees.
• Children who speak a second language can learn a third language faster, serving as another added benefit.
• Spanish is the second most-spoken language in the world, according to census reports. With 387 million native speakers, more people on earth speak Spanish than English. The opportunities for Spanish speakers across the globe continue to increase.