John Gutiérrez is determined to make UM one of the few schools around the country recognized for its language studies programs, and he’s getting in on the ground floor with some of his efforts.
The professor of modern languages and foreign language education, in addition to his far-reaching responsbilities with the Croft Institute for International Studies, has been working with the Gulfport School District (GSD) to attract federal grants to fund quality language instruction for some of Mississippi’s youngest students. The program is slated to expand to other districts in the coming year.
“We need students to enroll here as freshmen with really good foreign language skills so they leave us with an even higher level of proficiency,” Gutiérrez said. “Research shows that the earlier you start [studying a language], the greater ultimate fluency you’ll achieve. Research also shows that children who take even a half-hour [course] three times a week in any language score better on standardized tests.”
Anecdotal evidence in Gulfport elementary schools is backing up the research.
Gulfport students in kindergarten through fifth grade are participating in the Spanish program thanks to two grants from the U.S. Department of Education’s Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP). The first grant of $419,500, awarded to GSD in 2001, allowed Gutierrez and Gulfport educators to set up a pilot program for K-3 students in two high-poverty elementary schools, while a second grant of $406,000, awarded in 2004, expanded the program through the fifth grade to all seven of the district’s elementary schools.
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Pass Road Elementary K-3 students with Spanish teacher Annalisa McDonough |
“The children are responding well, and the teachers love it because the Spanish classes are reinforcing the regular curriculum,” Gutiérrez said. “If they are learning about shapes and basic math concepts in their regular classes, the children talk about shapes and basic math in the Spanish class.”
The Gulfport model has proven so successful that a third FLAP grant of $445,000 was awarded this year to the Mississippi Department of Education to export the program to four other districts in the state: Oxford City Schools, Moss Point Schools, Poplarville Schools and Western Line Schools in Avon. The districts are to begin offering Spanish in K-3 in fall 2006.
The program calls for students to meet with Spanish instructors, all of whom are native speakers, three times a week for half an hour. Classes are conducted entirely in Spanish and include no rote exercises. The curriculum works as well as it does because it’s “all designed to help students enjoy school,” said Shannon Hulsey, GSD’s elementary Spanish coordinator.
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Dayanara Navarro teaches Spanish to K-3 students at Pass Road Elementary. |
Hulsey, a longtime Gulfport educator who contacted Croft Institute Executive Director Michael Metcalf in 2000 for help in creating the program, said that it might not exist without help from UM and the Croft Institute.
“We hired Gutiérrez to help Mississippi improve language pedagogy and work with schools to improve opportunities for students studying language,” Metcalf said. “We’re very happy about what he’s doing in Gulfport. The program there serves the state well since many Mississippi employers need people who have excellent command of Spanish. Also, we’re growing more competent language learners who’ll be ready to study Spanish at the university level.”
Once they’re ready for college, Gutiérrez hopes UM will be their first choice.
“Right now there’s no school in the South considered ‘the’ place to go to learn languages,” he said. “Ole Miss could one day be just that.”
Gutiérrez is doing everything he can to make that happen. His work with the Croft Institute for International Studies includes conducting seminars for high school language teachers, mentoring Spanish students, directing study abroad programs in Costa Rica and Chile, and leading the new Intensive Spanish Summer Institute.