When Cactus Shadows senior Dominique Troyanos entered first grade at Desert Willow Elementary School in 2003, her classroom looked like any other classroom at the school: desks were neatly arranged, books were organized by subject, and colorful educational pictures decorated the walls. But she knew her first-grade experience was going to be different than some of her peers, because half of her day would be taught in a foreign language – Spanish. Dominique’s mother had enrolled her in a new program the Cave Creek Unified School District initiated that year, Spanish immersion. As part of the program, Dominique and her classmates would be “immersed” in the language by learning math and science in Spanish, and language arts and social studies in English. “I remember being so scared on the first day of school because I thought ‘I’m not going to understand anything (the teacher) says; all the posters are in Spanish,’” Dominique recalls. “But it was probably one of my favorite years.” Now fluent in Spanish, Dominique is perfecting her French and will learn Mandarin Chinese this summer when she travels to Deyang, China on a scholarship from the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y). She credits her ability to successfully learn languages to her early exposure and continuing education in the program. “When you start early, you’re developing your brain to learn other languages,
Dominique Troyanos
Break ing L a ng u ag e B a rr i e r s Writer Barb Evans Photographer Jerri Parness
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so retention is easier.”
A World of Languages CCUSD’s Spanish immersion program has been such a success, that the district has decided to apply the same model to Mandarin Chinese. “A Touch of Immersion” is available to incoming