Cultural and ethnic competency

Along with language development, it is the expectation that every student in the Spanish Two-way Immersion program will develop skills and attitudes that enable them to function comfortably in linguistically and culturally diverse contexts. The Spanish Two-way Immersion classroom is by nature culturally diverse: students represent a variety of countries and heritages, even if many Spanish speakers have been born in the U.S. Intentionally developing students’ awareness and understanding of each other will increase their cooperation and cohesion in the classroom. Cultural and ethnic competency will be demonstrated on instruments that measure attitudes and knowledge concerning cultural competency, as well as through interviews and classroom-observed situations. Cultural and ethnic competency is an essential strand of the regular subject-area curriculum in the two-way immersion classroom, and the written curriculum will reflect this accordingly.