Foreign Language in the Elementary Schools .... FLES

We can learn a language at any age, but starting young with FLES has big advantages:

• Children have more time to learn a language. It takes many years to become truly fluent.

• Children are wired to learn languages. They have the ability to repeat any sound in another language and to speak with almost native pronunciation, enabling them to be understood, and able to hear and understand better. They acquire a comfort level that comes from growing up with the language.

• The personal connections that learning another language provides can make other cultures come alive and, more directly, make lessons about global and local diversity easier to impart to young students.

• Languages add multiple dimensions to other areas of study, such as social studies, art and music.

Connetquot's FLES Program

Connetquot offers a unique opportunity for 3rd and 4th grade students to learn Spanish during their lunch time, every other day. Students bring their lunch with them to the language classroom and work with their FLES teacher on fun and engaging activities that bolster Spanish language development and culture. The program is split into one to four sessions, depending upon interest within the school. Small instructional groups of up to 15 students are selected for each session.

Our Instructional Approach

Instruction is consistently conducted in the target language with minimal use of English. Language acquisition is fostered by communicative tasks including games, songs, rhymes, chants, and other hands-on activities. Lessons are highly communicative and dynamic They are designed to address diverse learning styles and needs. The curriculum will be content-related, which allows for topics from the regular grade level curriculum to be reinforced by the FLES teacher through the second language, Spanish.