Preparing for Dual Immersion Kindergarten
Our 5-year old is starting kindergarten in August and will be in a dual immersion bilingual (Spanish-English) program. We are a monolingual English speaking family and she has not been at a bilingual preschool. She is excited that she will be learning Spanish, but she is definitely not clued into what exactly that will mean - 90% of her day will be in Spanish and 10% will be in English (the %age of instruction in English will increase by 10% every year until they get to 50/50 in 4th grade). I'm curious how other families preparing for bilingual kindergarten have prepped their English only kids for the transition. Our daughter is prone to anxiety so we are trying to walk a fine line between adequately preparing her and not causing her unnecessary worry. Thanks!
Parent Replies
I don't think you need to do anything specific. My kids were in a Chinese immersion school ((90% in target language /10% in English, as you describe) - the teachers will be very adept at using non-verbal communication during the first weeks/months. This *is* the immersion model - the kids are not aware of "learning" anything, it's just how things are. When you think about it, kids this age encounter many situations in which they may not "know" or understand exactly what's going on, even in English; they just follow along. Do whatever positive, encouraging things you would generally do to build her security about this next step in her life, and she will be fine.