Why Dual Language?

Student in class holding the peace sign

Dual language is a program at Bryant Webster that teaches Spanish speaking students English and English speaking students Spanish. The idea is for students to be bilingual, bi-cultural and bi-literate in both languages by the 8th grade.

We have two classes per grade, one class is taught in English and the other is taught in Spanish. The environments are pure, meaning that when in the Spanish component only Spanish is spoken and when in the English component only English is spoken. Both environments mirror each other and the lessons taught to the students in both languages are being taught at the same time. Content taught will last from 3 to 6 weeks and then the students switch from one language to another but continue on the course. Students are not re-taught the lessons they have just learned in the other language.

The intent is that the students, when learning the other language, will be able to transfer the knowledge they have and make sense of how it applies in the language they are learning.