CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Monday was the first day of school for the 14,000 students in East Aurora District 131, and for hundreds of kindergartners, it marks the start of a new dual-language program for the district.
About 1,000 kindergarten students will be learning in English and Spanish for the next 13 years of their academic careers in District 131. Next year, according to Dr. Rita Guzman, executive director of language acquisition and early learning, kindergartners and first graders will be learning in that mode until, eventually, students in all grade levels in the district are learning two languages.
Dr. Rita Guzman said one model will be a 50/50 model, "where we have English-dominant students and we have Spanish-dominant students based on a language proficiency exam that we gave them to see which language they develop. We will also have an English-dominant teacher and a Spanish-dominant teacher and students will be switching between subjects to be able to be exposed to both languages.
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She said the other model is 80/20 in which predominantly Spanish speaking students will learn mostly in Spanish and will be introduced more slowly to English.
It’s hoped that when they all graduate from high school, they'll be able to speak, read, and write fluently in both English and Spanish and be more employable.
"The goal is for bi-literacy and for our students to graduate with the seal of bi-literacy and save time and money and have ample opportunities to compete out there for jobs being bi-literate," Dr. Guzman said.
She said doing the dual language program remotely has its advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages is that because teachers will not have to wear face-coverings while online, students will be able to see the teachers' mouths moving and how they form certain words in both languages.
"It’s very important for us, as English language teachers or dual language teachers to model, ‘cause students mimic what we, how we develop, how we say or how we pronounce a certain word," Dr. Guzman said.
Latino students comprise 87 percent of the 14,000 student body, according to District 131 spokesman Tom Jackson.
Because of that, he said, "We have a gold mine here. Let’s take advantage of the fact that we have a basis to start and make sure all of our kids are bi-lingual, bi-literate in two languages."
Students in District 131 will be learning remotely until, at least, Nov. 3. After that, they may move to a hybrid model, with students learning in-person and remotely.