Each week Liliana, our Spanish language tutor conducts lessons with classes from P1 through to P7. The fun-packed activities teach basic conversation skills to the pupils and help to prepare our P7 pupils for the further development of their language skills at post-primary school.
Liliana Zanker (Spanish tutor):
"St Josephs Primary School is one of the few Primary Schools in Northern Ireland, where Spanish has been taught continuously for the past 11 years at Primary Level.
I am a Colombian native speaker and have been teaching Spanish at St Joseph's since 2008 when the PMLP, Primary Modern Languages Programme, was run and offered to every school in NI by the Education Authority. Unfortunately in 2015 the programme came to an end due to lack of funds, but Mr Ryan, Ms McKinley and now Mr Donaldson with the support of the school of Governors, took the brilliant decision of continuing the Spanish lessons at St Joseph's, being funded by the school and from this academic year, with the voluntary donations of pupils' parents. I take all classes from P2 right to P7; the P2 and P3 Classes are taught all year around, the P4, P5, P6 and P7 classes, alternate lessons in some terms, which is very important to get the children well prepared for Languages at post-primary level.
The lessons are specially designed for children to enjoy with the aim of having fun through songs, puppets, stories, dance, games and plenty of interactive activities. The lesson lasts for 30 minutes once a week in which the children have a routine, starting with greeting songs, counting numbers with Latin moves, followed by a simple conversation between two children, revision of the topic taught the week before and finishing with a game. When children reach P7, they should be able to count up to 100, ask and answer simple questions, state their name, age, where they live, their birthday, their favourite colour, food, sport, what’s the day, what’s the weather like, order food in a restaurant, describe their family, their home and much more. Also they can name Spanish speaking countries and learn about their culture. This means that when children move to a grammar/secondary school, they have a head start and a big advantage over their class peers who haven’t learnt a foreign language at Primary level. There is evidence from teachers at schools like Aquinas and St Pats, that children from St Joseph's and in the other schools I teach Spanish to, are at least one year ahead in their Spanish than the rest of their class peers, making them feel empowered and special. Most children will continue their Spanish to at least GCSE Level, providing them with more employment opportunities. Learning a language helps children understand their own language, improves their confidence, develops their social skills, teaches the children to accept and respect people from different traditions and enables them to communicate with people from other countries. Children who don’t excel in other areas, find learning a language enjoyable as it’s mainly oral and not writing based. In summary, children at St Joseph's are very lucky to learn Spanish, Spanish is the second most popular language in the world and not as challenging as other languages."
“In the knowledge society of the 21st Century, language competence and intercultural understanding are not optional extras, they are an essential part of being a citizen” Languages for All, Languages for Life (DfES 2002)