Immersing children in foreign languages

If your class arrived at school tomorrow to find all their lessons being held in Spanish, how long would it take for them to begin to understand? Perhaps not as long as you think, says Jeremy Dean......

If your class arrived at school tomorrow to find all their lessons being held in Spanish, how long would it take for them to begin to understand? Perhaps not as long as you think, says Jeremy Dean…...

Since Kenneth Baker’s 1988 National Curriculum, education has been in permanent (politically driven) revolution. But look at these recent ‘reforms’ and make two lists. On the first, select those which fill you with pride or inspiration, the reforms which had a positive effect on the education of children. On the second, note the initiatives that are now condemned as damaging or illthought out, time-wasting, discredited or simply forgotten.

The National Curriculum, LMS, city technology colleges, grantmaintained schools, parents’ charters, Ofsted, specialist schools, Education Action Zones, Fresh Start, superheads, SATs, special measures, targets, community schools, league tables, QCA, beacon schools, foundation schools, literacy strategies, numeracy strategies, ‘catch-up’ policies, faith schools, the GTC, Ofqual, ‘Report Cards’ for schools, academies, free schools…

Which of your lists is longer? I have to be honest, my first is pitifully short. Completely void of anything that I would consider ‘inspirational’. But then, I’ve not yet mentioned the most exciting educational innovation I have seen since I started teaching in 1982. And that’s because it didn’t happen in the UK… I had to move to Spain to see it.

In 2006 I started teaching the National Curriculum to a primary class with a difference. The children were all Spanish and I had to teach them everything in English. Imagine the reverse situation to appreciate how crazy the idea seems. Picture Spanish teachers coming to the UK to teach English primary children in Spanish. Not ‘Spanish lessons’, but maths in Spanish, science in Spanish, everything in Spanish. (Well, part from a daily English lesson, in English.)

How’s that for radical? It’s called ‘Immersion’ education and it’s common in Canada, the USA and the Middle East. There’s plenty of evidence to prove its efficacy, but my own eyes (and ears) tell me all I need to know. I watch Jaume converse with his mum in the local dialect, then tell me in English what she’s said, before flipping into Castillian (Spanish) with his mates. He doesn’t use a dictionary, he doesn’t get everything correct, but neither does he look up from the game of marbles which has the lion’s share of his attention. He is seven years old and trilingual.

When my embryonic Spanish collapses during a parents’ evening with insufficient translators, I am rescued by Macarena who tells her parents in Spanish what I’ve said in English, then translates their replies. She does this, not flawlessly (she’s only six and a bit), but confidently and competently. I don’t say much about her developing English, we simply listen to her demonstrating it.

So, as the UK educational system takes another hairpin bend that is the ‘free schools’ reform, how many ‘immersion schools’ are being proposed? Yes, there will be doom-laden voices of scepticism. I would’ve been among them seven years ago. But not now. So, what converted me? Well, of course, it was the children. My exuberant, noisy (but ultimately delightful) class of mini Spaniards. If there was a ‘breakthrough’ moment, it was the afternoon when a small fight broke out at the back.

It’s won’t make the front page of El Mundo, but it’s a fair old scrap. Lots of noise and a teeny bit of pushing. Two boys, a school rubber and a small crowd. Jaime (pronounced ‘High-may’) is shouting, ‘Ees mine!’ at Vicente (Beesentay) who is responding with, ‘No, ees mine!’ Lledó is wide-eyed at my desk, stating the obvious. ‘Heems peleando!’ she shouts. I assume from the context that ‘peleando’ means ‘fighting’.

‘Yes, isn’t it wonderful!’ I whisper to her incredulous face. But I can’t let it go on, so in the timehonoured tradition of teachers protecting school property the world over, I stand up and bellow, ‘It’s mine, actually!’

And everybody stops, except Vicente, who gives an enormous tug and seizes the rubber. He holds it aloft, like a small, grey FA Cup, and shouts, ‘Ees mine, atjelly!’ Well, what can I do? I give them both a house point.

Lledó is outraged. ‘Heems ees peleando, you say ees good and you geev heems house point?’ she gasps, disbelievingly. I lean closer. ‘Of course it’s good,’ I say. ‘Didn’t you hear? They were fighting in English!’

And no, I haven’t been at the sherry, in fact a bilingual (English/Spanish) primary school (with Spanish being taught through ‘immersion’) opened in Brighton in September 2012. A chance for our children to show us all what they are really capable of.

Immersion education, are we finally taking the plunge? Let’s hope it catches on before the politicians notice…