Dear Parents of Elementary French and Spanish Students:
Welcome! Bienvenues! ¡Bienvenidos! We hope that you enjoyed the time with your children during the summer; we thought of them often and are eager to hear of their experiences. We both remained in the United States this vacation, but we still found many enjoyable opportunities to practice our French and Spanish. As we begin a new year with your children, we are excited about the explorations ahead and the return of Mr. Fain.
We have observed great student success with the application of TPR (Total Physical Response) and TPRS (Teaching Proficiency with Reading and Storytelling) methodologies in our classrooms and have continued to hone our skills in these areas. It is exciting to watch students who are actively engaged, using only French and Spanish to communicate. We encourage you to visit our classrooms during the school year to experience this for yourselves.
In TPRS, “students receive a tremendous amount of input in the target language from the teacher: first through TPR (as they silently respond with actions) and then through storytelling or TPRS (when they begin to respond to questions and eventually give more lengthy output in the form of student retells, etc.). In order to maximize output, we must maximize the input first and not encourage students to speak before they are ready to do so.”*
We are honored to share in the privilege and responsibility of educating your children. We are delighted to be able to include French and Spanish among the tools with which they can explore and understand their world. The learning of a foreign language in the elementary grades is an essential element in a Paideia school and the knowledge of at least a second world language is increasingly important in our global economy. Chattanooga has recently welcomed the French power and transportation company, Alstom, the German car manufacturer, Volkswagen, and a growing number of Spanish-speaking businesses. The future begins with your child.
Sincerely,
Deborah Tucker & Jennifer Raulston
French Spanish
*Jason Fritze (www.comprehensibleinput.com)
About Jennifer J. Raulston
Education: B.A., Rosemont College; M.Ed., University of San Diego
Why are you at CSAS? I am here because of the Paideia philosophy, our students and their involved families, a highly professional and inspiring faculty, and my love of Spanish.
Family: Steve, my husband; Hannah, my daughter; and Momo, my dog. I have an identical twin sister and two older brothers.
Hobbies: Travel, baking/cooking, painting, knitting, sewing, biking, hiking, swimming, reading, the beach.
Favorite sports team: CSAS Patriots, Real Madrid soccer
Favorite book: Just one?! Rough Justice by C.E. Montague. My father collected rare books; this was his first gift to me from that collection.
I loved the story as well as the characters.
Favorite quote: "Do one thing every day that scares you." Eleanor Roosevelt
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" Mary Oliver
Favorite subject when you were a student: Language/literature/social studies
