Spanish Service-Learning

Ginny Steinkamp and Meredith Stoops

Learning a second language, especially at a young age, provides many benefits. According to The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, foreign language education supports three major areas of development for students including academic achievement, cognitive abilities such as problem solving, and the development of appreciation for other cultures and beliefs.

In the 2019 Spring semester, Professor Veronica Charbonnet and the students in her Community Spanish Service-Learning course explored and promoted the benefits of early exposure of foreign language education to students in the elementary classroom.

Charbonnet said, “Unfortunately, there is not a very big Spanish-speaking population in Atchison, which does not reflect the changing demographics, so we are hoping to introduce Spanish to the Atchison community.”

Students in Charbonnet’s class researched bilingual children’s literature. Additionally, they read bilingual children’s books to youth at St. Benedict Catholic School, Trinity Lutheran School, and the Atchison Public Library. Each team in the class scheduled three visits to their community partner and were asked to select books that would be fun and engaging as well as an appropriate level of difficulty for the group they would read to.

“I’ve been very glad to have both the señoritas,” commented Teresa Gorrell, Spanish teacher at St. Benedict Catholic School. “I was impressed with their ability to pick out books that were the appropriate age level for kindergarten. After the first week of their story reading, I sent them an email and thanked them and gave them a couple of ideas about how they could engage with the students more in their reading and specifically help draw out Spanish from the story. They took my advice, and I’ve been able to see even just in the three sessions we have had how they have improved.”

When these Ravens would walk into the classroom, they were immediately greeted with the smiling faces of kindergartners and their enthusiasm to learn. Kindergartner, Eme Eckert, loved getting to know the students reading to her class and greeting them in Spanish: “It’s fun,” she said. “It was kind of boring until they started reading to us, and then it was fun because there are funny jokes in there. My favorite book was ‘The Princess and the Pea.’” Eme and the others in St. Benedict’s kindergarten class are learning a wide range of Spanish vocabulary from greetings, to counting numbers, to shapes.

Thomas Wood, a classmate of Eme’s, was also very excited about learning the Spanish language saying, “I want to know how to say it all!” Thomas’ favorite parts were learning how to count and how to sing the counting song in Spanish.

Gorrell saw many benefits to Benedictine students reading to these younger students: “It’s super important,” she said. “At [St. Benedict Catholic School], our current principal, Diane Liebsch, has made it important to have Spanish in the primary grades. It’s during those young ages when their brains are growing so much in language as they are learning to spell and read for the first time. Their minds are like sponges soaking that in. If Spanish instruction is incorporated at a younger age, students tend to be able to retain it.”

Patrick Glancy, Children’s Librarian at the Atchison Public Library, enjoyed seeing the children get excited, watching what they learned, and seeing what they already knew when the Benedictine students went to read at the Library. He, like Gorrell, stressed the importance of exposing children to a foreign language at an early age. “I think it’s great to get younger kids started on it,” he said. “Frankly, our schools should be more focused on starting a second language at a younger age because I know there are studies done that the younger you get to kids with a second language the more likely they are to retain and use that language later in life. I didn’t take Spanish until high school and remember basically none of it.”

Another exciting element of Professor Charbonnet’s course is the production of a bilingual children’s book about Atchison, to be completed in Fall 2019 by Benedictine students. Charbonnet says, “We hope that they have fun with it. This book is something of a gift from us to Atchison, our community.” Glancy is also looking forward to having the book on the library’s shelves for the kids of Atchison to read. In this way, the passion that these students have shown for sharing language and culture with local youth will continue long after their time at Benedictine College has ended.