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Teens help the bridge language gap in Luverne Elementary classrooms

Lead Summary
By
Mavis Fodness

The educational journey for Luverne High School Senior Betania Topete came full circle Monday as she worked one-on-one with kindergartner Rene Flores.
Topete is one of four Spanish IV students practicing language skills with elementary and middle school students who are learning English as a second language.
“I love it,” she said. “It’s my favorite thing to do.”
The unique pairing is in response to this year’s larger than anticipated student growth at Luverne Public Schools.
With almost 50 students above last year’s fall enrollment of 1,193, the new students are almost evenly split between the elementary and middle/school high school.
Feeling the growing pains is Al Brinkman’s K-12 English as a Second Language program. His classroom grew by 10 over last year. Of the 40 current students, 11 are kindergartners.
Lending a hand with ESL lessons are the high school Spanish IV students. Brinkman said he works with students in small groups for 20-30 minutes a day, but with the high school students’ help, some of the kindergartners get one or two more lessons a day.
Hearing familiar words in Spanish mixed with a new language bridges learning between the two more quickly.
Brinkman said all children learn to understand and speak English first, followed by reading and writing.
“Writing is the hardest to learn and is the last to develop,” he said.
Senior Topete is well versed in the sequence, as she was one of Brinkman’s ESL kindergarten students.
She repeated the sequence as a high school freshman when she began lessons to become proficient in Spanish. Topete is currently learning how to write in Spanish as she journals about her lessons with Flores for her independent study.
Her adviser is high school Spanish teacher Caroline Thorson.
“It’s a great experience for the kids to actually put it (learning) into authentic situations and use it,” Thorson said.
Topete remembers the confusion she felt as a 5-year-old entering school for the first time and not understanding what teachers and her classmates were saying.
“I felt isolated,” she said.
Her isolation was broken under Brinkman’s instruction on vowels, and that understanding ended her mispronunciation as she began reading out loud.
“The vowels are different in Spanish than in English,” Topete said. “Everything clicked once the vowels were strengthened out.”
She wants that same breakthrough moment for her current student.
In the two weeks of working together, Topete and student Flores eagerly converse in Spanish followed by English during their Monday lesson on letters and numbers.
A big “yes” was uttered when asked through his teacher/interpreter if he likes his teacher. His answer was followed with a large smile.
Brinkman said students Flores’ age readily absorb everything in and outside the regular classroom.
“If they receive instruction at the kindergarten level, they can expect to be fluent in four to five years,” he said. “The national average is seven.”

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