JEROME, Idaho — The dual immersion program in Jerome began eight years ago. Now, students who started the program in kindergarten or first grade have been learning both the English and Spanish languages for seven or eight years.
I asked student Wynn Williams to describe what he likes about speaking two languages. I thought it would be interesting to ask him to answer in Spanish. Williams gave an articulate and lengthy response, however, I don’t speak Spanish, so I asked his classmate Felice Romero Cantone to translate for me.
“He said that, we learn a lot about Latin American culture in class, and that he can understand his Latin friends, and understand their culture,” Romero Cantone said.
The Jerome School District is one of several around the state that offer a dual immersion program in both English and Spanish.
The only way to get into the program is in kindergarten or first grade. There are more families interested in getting their kids into the program than there are seats, so enrollment is done by lottery.
Once in the program, students are expected to stay in it as they progress through the grades.
Classes are instructed 50-50, half in English, half in Spanish, and they keep pace with their grade-appropriate curriculum … just in two languages instead of one.
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JMS Principal Nicole Ferreira said the course is rigorous, and in the beginning, it can present a lot of challenges to young students – but that those challenges are really paying off.
“I know there is just a natural struggle period that the kids go through,” Ferreira told Idaho News 6. “Part of it is exhaustion, because they are thinking in two different languages, and their brain is working so much harder. But that is all covered as the students enroll [during] the parent meeting. The elementary [school] does a great job to prepare them: this is going to be hard, it’s not going to be simple. But your kids can do hard things.”
Twin Falls School District started its dual immersion program just this year. To prepare for it, teachers and staff came out here to Jerome Middle School to look a their program and see how it all came together.
Demand is so high that the number of participants has doubled, from 48 kids in each new class of kindergarten and first graders to 96 kids in both kindergarten and first grade, in the dual immersion program in Jerome.
