Appleton
Appleton Area School District, located between Oshkosh and Green Bay, serves students of 45-50 different linguistic backgrounds. The EL program is more than 1,600 strong with Spanish and Hmong the most represented languages.
English Learners and Newcomer Program
“…in the past five years Appleton has welcomed an influx of Congolese refugees who speak Swahili or Kinyarwanda.”
“The Appleton school district operates a Newcomer program to serve students who have been in the country for less than two years and know little or no English when they arrive.”
Language Breakdown
Hmong (42%)
Spanish (40%)
Swahili (4%)
Kinyarwanda (2%)
…and 40+ other languages each representing less than 1% of students!
Bilingual Staff
“Our bilingual staff also provides important native language support to students in order to enhance academic progress as students learn English. We have about 40 teachers (some full-time, a few part-time) and about 35 interpreters, K-12.”
Appleton Bilingual School
¿Por qué bilingüe? / Why Bilingual?
“Multiple instructional strategies that embrace divergent learning styles and skills will be used, including:
Total Physical Response (TPR) An approach to learning that uses gestures and body language responses to help students connect with unfamiliar vocabulary in a natural way.
Language Experience Approach (LEA) An instructional strategy that creates common experiences and therefore common discussion topics for students.”
Appleton Classical School
“Classical students learn Spanish daily in immersive classes involving little English—students in grades K-6 receive 25 – 30 minutes of daily Spanish instruction and students in grades 7 and 8 receive 45 minutes of daily Spanish instruction.
Students at Classical School begin learning Spanish by listening to understand vocabulary. Early Spanish instruction emphasizes aural proficiency to promote natural language acquisition through repetition of the basic grammar of everyday situations. As students progress they learn more sophisticated, specialized grammar and vocabulary and develop their Spanish conversational skills.”
Students also learn Greek and Latin roots from 4th to 8th grade.
Unique High School Programming
Hmong Literacy
CAPP Dual Enrollment Language Courses
Latin
Unique Spanish Courses
Un viaje por las Américas
¡Viva España!
Tradiciones y costumbres del mundo hispanohablante
Misterios de los Mayas, Incas, y Aztecas
Image Credits: https://urbanmatter.com/chicago/appleton-wisconsin/