Two-Way Immersion Programs: Teaching Spanish Language While Affirming Latino Identity
A little-known fact about the School District of Philadelphia: it's home to the first two-way immersion program in the United States! In the early 1970s, Potter-Thomas School in North Philadelphia was observed by experts nationwide as a model for two-way immersion (TWI).
Dr. Nelson Flores, Assistant Professor in Educational Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, has studied the history of bilingual programs in the School District of Philadelphia. “No one really knew what they were doing,” he said, so educators and policymakers from across the country came to North Philly to see how Potter-Thomas’s TWI program was panning out.
In the 1970s, the District piloted innovative programs like the one at Potter-Thomas through federal Title VII funds. By 1981, the funds dried up. When neither the City nor the District was able to foot the bill to keep the TWI programs running, the programs slowly lost momentum and started to disappear.
In the 1990s, the District sponsored many different multilingual programs in languages such as Spanish, Vietnamese, Khmer, and Chinese. Because of a lack of funding, however, these programs followed a transitional model rather than a dual-language model.
The transitional model is designed only for English learners, “with English being the ultimate goal,” Dr. Flores explained, whereas dual-language models, such as the TWI program, are designed to include both native Spanish speakers and native English speakers, with bilingualism being the goal. By 2012, no dual-language programs existed in the District.
In recent years, however, the District has slowly brought back dual-language programs, starting in North Philadelphia schools that already had transitional language programs in place. This school year, TWI programs exist in six elementary schools: Cayuga Elementary Promise Academy; Lewis Elkin Elementary School; Alexander K. McClure School; Hon. Luis Munoz Marin; Southwark School; and Bayard Taylor Elementary.
Selling the TWI program to parents at North Philadelphia schools was much different than selling it to parents at Southwark School in South Philadelphia, said Dr. Flores.
For one, many students in North Philadelphia are already bilingual—to differing degrees. For instance, a child may speak Spanish with their grandmother, but only know how to read and write in English. Moreover, North Philly’s Latino community includes many second-, third-, and fourth-generation immigrant families, whereas South Philly has experienced an influx of Latin American immigrants in more recent years.
This makes distinguishing between “English speaker” and “Spanish speaker” difficult—and this is an important distinction to make in the TWI program, which relies on a classroom made up of 50% native English speakers and 50% native Spanish speakers. Still, according to Dr. Flores, who hosted TWI program information sessions in North Philadelphia, many Latino families were still very excited to enroll their children in the program.
“Their identity is being affirmed,” he said.
Dr. Flores, along with research assistant Sofia Chaparro, noted that parents in South Philly—many of them well-educated, affluent, and white Americans—asked more questions about the research and benefits of dual-language programs. In contrast, parents from North Philly—most of them low-income, Spanish-speaking, Latino, and/or immigrants—tended to be more interested in how the program would teach their children about Latino identity.
Dr. Flores often told North Philly parents about how he is the only child in his family who speaks Spanish, despite the fact that his parents spoke it at home. This story resonated with parents who saw the TWI program as an opportunity for their children to rediscover Spanish and their cultural heritage.
Participating in a Spanish immersion program in an American public school is more than just a fun opportunity for Latino families. As Dr. Flores pointed out, most Latino families do not “opt-in” to public schools because of dual-language programs; they do not have the luxury to “shop around” for schools, so when their neighborhood public school offers a program that emphasizes their language and culture, it’s especially meaningful and important.
While TWI programs are certainly beneficial for all students—no matter their ethnicity or socio-economic background—Dr. Flores hopes that the District will be intentional about developing dual-language programs in schools like Cayuga, Elkin, and McClure, Marin, and Taylor.
“It’s important for us to be mindful about equitably distributing this program,” he said, explaining that he would like to see the District “prioritize neighborhoods that are not usually prioritized.”
“There are probably parents that would really, really want to have their kids in [the TWI] program, but they don’t have any more space,” Ms. Chaparro commented. “Especially Latino parents. Once they figure out this is an option—not all parents, but I think many parents would want the District to offer something like this.”
“It’s interesting because there’s so much pressure on immigrants to learn English,” Ms. Chaparro continued to explain. “Not every Latino family might be necessarily open to [two-way immersion programs].”
According to Ms. Chaparro, this was one of the most interesting findings of her graduate dissertation, which focused Southwark’s TWI program: Latino families were oftentimes hesitant to have their children formally learn Spanish at an American school. Spanish speaking mothers would think, “‘No, we’ll teach Spanish to our kids at home, and they can get English at school,” Ms. Chaparro said.
“So there’s that view,” explained Ms. Chaparro, “and I think part of it is the incredible pressure to assimilate and pressure to speak English, and the desire for their children to be successful.”
Spanish speaking parents have also articulated awareness of the influence that the TWI program has on cultural identity and perceptions of race in their respective neighborhoods.
“Sometimes I would ask them how it makes them feel that there are non-Hispanic, American, English-speaking kids in the program,” Ms. Chaparro noted. “And one Mexican father said that it’s really good that these English-speaking children are in this Spanish immersion classroom. When [English speaking] struggle to express something, they realize that when they see their classmates perhaps struggle in English, it’s the language barrier, and not due to any other type of inferiority.”
Ms. Chaparro calls this “building empathy through experience.”
“Having [English-speaking students] struggle in a classroom, not being able to participate,” she explained, “and having that experience first-hand gives them insight into the ways in which immigrants in this country who don’t really speak English struggle, and that it’s not because of lack of knowledge, or awareness, or intelligence.”
Empathy-building, like language learning, goes two ways in the TWI program. Ms. Chaparro interviewed an English-speaking mother who expressed how frustrated she was with her child’s homework, which was entirely in Spanish. She tried using Google Translate and other Spanish-to-English resources, but found herself unable to assist her child in elementary school-level work.
“She realized: that’s what immigrant families go through,” Ms. Chaparro said. “All the time.”
Another Spanish speaking mother said that she felt proud that other children wanted to learn Spanish. “For her, she even framed it as, ‘I feel like there’s less racism, because this public school now has this program for our families—our Latino families, Ms. Chaparro noted. “And even English speakers want to be part of it, and that makes me feel really good, and very proud that I know Spanish.’”
Some Spanish speaking parents have worried that the popularity of these language programs will lead to increased interest in their neighborhood school by more affluent families, ultimately causing the push out of Latino families.
“One parent said that she realized because of the design of the two-way immersion program, that can’t happen,” Ms. Chaparro explained, “because you’ll always need to have 50% Spanish speakers, who are going to be mostly Latino families, or mixed families.”
“It would be awesome if the District offered this program in more schools,” Ms. Chaparro added, “because clearly it’s important for Latino families to preserve their language. I mean, there are literally 12 spots every year for Spanish-speaking families in this program in South Philly…which is crazy.”
Although TWI programs take a lot of work, program maintenance, and school-wide staff buy-in, Ms. Chaparro believes that “when they work, they’re amazing.”
“It makes a huge difference for parents when the teacher not only can speak their language, but also comes from a similar cultural background,” she explained. “With a bilingual program, you just have so much more attention, and emphasis, and ability to bring in parents…and those opportunities—parents wouldn’t get in an English-only classroom. I think it’s those moments that are worth it, and are powerful.”
