Term
Spring 2018
Capstone
Capstone Project
Degree Name
MAT
Facilitator(s)
Jason E. Miller, Patty Born Selly
Abstract
The purpose of the project is to develop examples of activities and lessons within the regular social studies curriculum of Spanish immersion students in middle school that reinforce Spanish language skills that most of these students seen to struggle to master. The rationale of the project came from the observations of the author of the language skills of Spanish immersion students in middle school, in which he notice that, although their communication and understanding skills were very advanced, the students have gaps in language areas like specific grammar concepts, and develop academic Spanish language. The literature review major studies on language development, bilingualism, characteristics of Spanish immersion programs and how content areas classes (science, social studies, math) can help Spanish immersion students to improve their language skills. Two major influences for the project in the literature review are the concept of language objectives for content classes, developed by Tara Fortune and
Diane Tedick in their project Content-Based Second Language Instruction, and the pre- adolescence students need for a more complex social and academic language in order
to interact and be successful in school, expressed in the Maggie Broner and Elaine Tarone study, It is fun? Language play in a fifth-grade Spanish Immersion classroom. The project proposal is to create a set of lessons within the regular social studies curriculum that incorporate language goals for each lesson and that target specific language features, identified by the literature review and Spanish language teachers as difficult to master by most Spanish immersion students. The last chapter of the capstone review the results of the curriculum writing process and what the author had learned after trying some of the lessons with 7th and 8th grade Spanish immersion students. The author review the implications, limitation and future applications of the project, and recommend its expansion as a creation of extended Social Studies curriculum for 7th and 8th grade with the collaboration of Spanish language teachers.
Project Type
Curriculum
Keywords
Curriculum, Foreign Language, Multicultural Education, Spanish Immersion
Recommended Citation
Perona, Juan, "How Social Studies Curriculum Can Help Spanish Immersion Students To Develop And Improve Their Grammar And Language Skills" (2018). School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects. 154.
https://digitalcommons.hamline.edu/hse_cp/154
dc_type
text
dc_publisher
DigitalCommons@Hamline
dc_format
application/pdf
dc_source
School of Education Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations