Starting your first kid in Spanish immersion Kindergarten is nerve-wracking, no matter what kind of immersion program you are considering!

I hope to alleviate your concerns by sharing a bit of my story and an idea of what to expect, so that you don’t worry unnecessarily. My hope is this will reduce your anxiety and let you enjoy your child’s first year and their journey into bilingualism!

A brief intro into my story: I was really nervous when my first child entered Spanish immersion kindergarten. At the end of the first trimester, I was still anxious because he didn’t seem to be picking up the language. I was really concerned that if he wasn’t picking up the language, he wasn’t going to understand the content he was being taught! But, when I voiced my concerns, all the parents, principals and teachers told me my kid “would be fine.” He didn’t seem fine to me.

As a scientist with a research background, being told to just “trust the system” didn’t sit well with me. I needed to know how the system worked, and I wanted proof that it was working before I could rest assured that I was making a good decision for my child.

I took a 2 year deep dive into language acquisition, the Spanish immersion classroom, and the California educational standards until I could put my mind at ease. Fast forward almost 5 years, and I now happily have 3 kids in a full one-way Spanish Immersion Elementary School. The anxiety from that first year was not a fun way to start the process of bilingualism. I want to share what I’ve learned so that incoming parents can feel more confident and enjoy their kids’ kindergarten year. As you read the blogs on this site, I hope you feel your own nervousness fall away.

What I wish someone had told me about Spanish immersion Elementary School

Here are a few things I really wish had been explained to me my first year. You can find more details about these topics in additional posts on this site:

• There will be a silent period. Your child may not produce Spanish spontaneously for almost 3 years! But this silence/reluctance doesn’t mean they don’t understand what’s being spoken to them.
  
• You CAN support your child’s language acquisition journey, even if you don’t speak Spanish at home. To find out more about how to do that, see this post or this Spanish Immersion parent guide to the language arts.
  
• Your child’s teacher is likely trained in methods to help them communicate content despite the language barrier! One of these methods is TPR. You can find out more about it here.
  
• The teachers are able to assess your child’s academic content knowledge without your child speaking the target language. Your child can draw/act out/ point to objects as a way of communicating that they understand, even though they don’t have the language just yet. This is a perfectly appropriate way to assess standards in Kindergarten.
  
• Your child will not be explicitly taught grammar rules and conjugations for several years. They will pick up the correct grammar as the adults around them speak properly, but it will take several years. If they do say things correctly, they may not be able to explain why something is grammatically correct, it will just “sound” correct to them.
  
• Understanding a language is a different skill than speaking a language. And speaking a language, is a different skill than translating between two languages. We learn to translate automatically when we “learn” a language, but your child is “acquiring” a language. Don’t expect your child to be able to translate sentences from one language to another easily, even though they understand/speak both! More on that here.
  
• Your child will likely have a special bond with his/her classmates – one that is unique to immersion classes. Kids in immersion classrooms have to learn very quickly to rely on peer support to help them communicate and understand what’s happening. Practicing these collaborative skills will make them strong communicators and community builders!

Ready to step confidently into the academic year?

Alright, fellow language immersion parent, I hope I’ve given you the confidence to relax a little bit going into your child’s Kindergarten Spanish Immersion experience.

Remember, your child’s teacher will be an expert at getting them to learn in a language that they don’t know. And even when it doesn’t seem like they are learning, it’s possible it’s just a language translation issue and not a learning or language issue. If you would like, feel free to grab some of my helpful parent resources here.

Lastly, if you still have some time before your child starts Spanish Immersion, take this time to start working on Kindergarten readiness concepts in their primary language so they can more efficiently use transference to help them succeed in that first year!  More about that in the next post.

You’ve got this!