I got this question from an elementary school teacher with my response below:
Q. Hi! Just wanted to know if your summer institutes would be useful for elementary K-5 Spanish. I only see my kids once per week. This is my first year of teaching. Many of the kids live in poverty, and I had a very challenging year as a first year teacher connecting to them and building relationships.
A. Tina and I both feel that our work is highly adaptable for K-5 Spanish. Here is something a great elementary CI teacher named Alisa Shapiro-Rosenberg in Chicago said on this topic:
“Elementary CI is very similar teaching CI to all novices of any age. The strategies really are kindergarten strategies! All good kindergarten teachers scaffold instructions and language, and try to support meaning with expressive and/or non-verbal cues – props, pictures, manipulatives, gestures, expression, voice. All the strategies we talk about are all about norming the group, laying in predictable routines and rituals. Story time? It’s like breathing air for us and for them.”