Programa Amigos

Sandra M. Canas came to Cambridge from El Salvador when her son Miguel was four years old.

Canas couldn't find a Spanish language day care center so she put her son into an English language program. Within six months, he no longer wanted to speak Spanish.

"He would cover his ears and say, "I don't want to hear that language,'" Canas says, remembering the times she tried to speak with her son in Spanish.

So Canas enrolled Miguel in the Cambridge Public Schools' Amigos program, a Spanish-English bilingual program for Spanish-speaking and native English speaking children.

"Miguel was forgetting his Spanish [in day care] because he was not in an environment where he was hearing and speaking it," Canas says.

Miguel is now in sixth grade in the Amigos program, and Sandra Canas says that through the program, her son is fluent in both Spanish and English.

Miguel Canas says his sixth grade class has gone to the Maynard school to teach a first grade class in Spanish.

"It's a good class to take," says Miguel Canas, adding that he was sure Spanish would be useful when he needed a job.

The Amigos Program

Amigos is a seven-year old program at the Maynard (Kindergarten through third grade) and Kennedy (grades four through six) schools. It is a "two-way bilingual program," differing from traditional bilingual programs in that it attempts to teach English-speaking students Spanish and Spanish-speaking students English at the same time.

Traditional programs enroll only non-English speaking students and seek to teach them English.

The Amigos program begins in Kindergarten and now continues through sixth grade. Kindergarten and first-grade students are taught for half of each week in Spanish and half in English. In second grade, the schedule changes to week-long blocks in each language.

"We haven't seen any student confusion [with the switch]," says Margarita Cordova, a Kindergarten teacher in a Spanish classroom of Amigos. "They know which days are English and which are Spanish better than their parents do."

"The philosophy of the program is to separate the languages," says Mary T. Casabon, coordinator of curriculum and testing for bilingual education programs.

This, Casabon says, forces children to focus on one language at a time.

"[Through the program] students are able to function in an all-English environment and an all-Spanish environment," Casabon says.

Cordova teaches her class entirely in Spanish, but the kindergarteners are allowed to ask and answer questions in Spanish or English, she says.

"The kindergarteners are really understanding a lot. That's my goal for the kindergarten," Cordova says.

As students progress in the program, they become more proficient in both languages, according to Casabon.

Casabon says the program's first goal has been "to provide a solid academic program for students in which they will gain ability to communicate in two languages."

"For the most part," Casabon says, "students start to feel really comfortable with knowledge of both languages by second grade."

"By third grade the children are able to read, write, and speak in both languages," she says.

The program also aims to encourage students to form "cross-cultural friendships," Casabon says. She says that by third grade, children are choosing friendships without regard to racial or ethnic background."

Cordova says the environment in her classroom is completely Spanish, with Spanish books and posters around the room help to reinforce the language for students.

Starting bilingual training in kindergarten makes it much easier for students to learn a second language, Cordova says. "At that age, it's very comfortable for them," she says.

The Amigos program currently has 247 students, 121 of whom are native Spanish speakers. More are on a waiting list. Albert Giroux, public information director for the Cambridge public schools, says demand for the program runs about even between English and Spanish-speaking parents.

Friendships Formed

Students and parents interviewed hailed the program as a success. Jason Nowlan, a sixth grader in his seventh year in Amigos, says that while he does not understand every word of the Spanish-language lessons, he is able to "piece it together." He says he did not find it confusing to switch languages weekly.

Jose Perez, a sixth grader in Amigos, says he has formed friendships with students of English-speaking and Spanish-speaking backgrounds.

School officials say the Amigos program introduces students to the others' culture as well as language. "Students are bombarded by multicultural education," Casabon says.

Nowlan says he traveled to Puerto Rico with Amigos last year and attended a school where he was able to communicate in Spanish.

Carolann M. Nowlan, a native English speaker, says she doesn't expect her son Jason to become completely fluent of Spanish. Nowlan says she enrolled her son in the program so that he can "get [his] feet wet in the experience of learning a language."

Nowlan said that Jason experienced "a bit of frustration," when he started the program in kindergarten, but she saw that as "normal." He has no problem after second grade, she said.

Skills for the Workplace

Jason now talks with Spanish-speaking friends in Spanish, Nowlan said, adding that she hopes he'll be able to communicate with Spanish-speaking coworkers later on.

"When he goes out to get a job, I'm hoping he'll have experience [speaking Spanish]," Nowlan says.

Giroux, the spokesperson for the Cambridge schools, agrees that the program's goal of educating bilingual students will be a boon when they reach the increasingly international job market.

"If you speak more than one language, you're way ahead of the game," Giroux says.

"Everybody needs bilingual people," Sandra Canas says. She attributes part of her success in this country to her knowledge of both Spanish and English, and she says she wants to give her son the same advantage.

A Recent Innovation

The Amigos program started in 1986 with two kindergarten classes. Since then, it has added a grade each year and now reaches sixth grade. There are now two classes in for each grade level from kindergarten through fourth and two fifth-sixth multigrade classes. With money from a recent federal grant, the school plans to extend the module to a half-day program in seventh and eighth grades, Casabon says.

With the beginning of the Amigos program, we've had fewer [Spanish-speaking] students taking ESL [English as a second language]." Casabon says. "Most parents choose either Amigos or bilingual."

The traditional program, transitional bilingual education, taught students mostly in their native language, and spent part of the day teaching them English. The city's Spanish transitional bilingual program has 151 students.

Students who choose to take English as a Second Language are put into English-speaking classrooms and pulled out for a short time each day for specific English instruction.

The Amigos program offers Spanish-speaking students an intermediate between these two alternatives. The half of the time spent on Spanish makes sure students won't be "in the dark" as Canas puts it, while the English half of the program is a total immersion which virtually forces students to learn English quickly.

Giroux says that while he did not have specific data, he believes that Spanish-speaking students learn English more quickly in the Amigos program than in traditional programs.

With the current focus on multiculturalism, Giroux calls Amigos "a fantastic opportunity to become a global community."