A new School of Education initiative will provide foreign language instruction to every third-grader in Ann Arbor Public Schools beginning the fall of 2009.
Through the newly formed Ann Arbor Languages Partnership, U-M world language teacher education students fluent in Spanish will receive intensive preparation then teach the language to third-graders. The program will be offered in all 21 Ann Arbor elementary schools for two 30-minute sessions each week. It will be expanded to include fourth- and fifth-graders starting in 2010-11.
The apprentice teachers will be supervised by U-M faculty and mentored by the media specialist in each school.
“It’s a truly win-win situation for everyone,” says Donald Freeman, associate professor of education and director of teacher education. “Children will learn Spanish from the U-M apprentice teachers, as these new professionals are learning themselves.”
The finances are mutually beneficial as well. Without the partnership design, the district would have to spend nearly $1 million for such a program. The joint program allows the School of Education to create a professional learning laboratory for its work in world languages while responding to the increasing need for K-12 certified Spanish teachers in Michigan and around the country.
The new program, which will be further refined by U-M and the Ann Arbor School District this year, is based on the Common European Framework, a Council of Europe language policy framework currently used in many nations around the world.
The framework organizes language according to learners’ goals. It is linked to a print or digital Language Passport, which is a language assessment and documentation process that is recognized worldwide.
