Bow Valley students with a New Year’s Resolution to learn Spanish are in luck, as the language will be taught at schools this February.
The Canadian Rockies Public Schools introduced Spanish Language and Culture as its third language for high school students this past week, which will be appointed in three levels of learning.
The course will be after school and will begin Feb. 4-5 at Banff Community High School and Canmore Collegiate High School. It is available to all high school students in the Bow Valley.
CRPS Superintendent Chris MacPhee said more than 30 students have signed up for the course so far, which will be held over a three-year period.
“Our hope is that in the future, if the interest stays at the level it is, that we build it as part of the regular schedule within the school day,” MacPhee said.
“We recognize our students have moved into a global world and language acquisitions from numerous countries become extremely important.
“We see it as a benefit for students to have another language (offered).”
CRPS first considered to adopt the program in 2014 when Danielle Arsenault, a substitute teacher fluent in Spanish, offered to provide the educational service for students.
With 10 years of experience teaching and learning Spanish, Arsenault said she could create the curriculum from scratch with previous experience in doing so and by using the Alberta Education’s Program of Studies as a guideline.
“Students will realize how much speaking a second or third language opens opportunities for them in the future, like for me it’s opened up all these opportunities that would have never been available for me,” Arsenault said.
With Spain being one of the top two demographics for English as a Second Language (ESL) students coming to learn at CRPS, Arsenault thinks it’s one reason why it resulted in a successful “trial run” with students at both schools.
“I gave them the opportunity to say why they were here and several of them said, ‘My good friends here from school are from Spain and I want to be able to speak with them in their language,’ because right now they’re conversing in English,” Arsenault said.
MacPhee added a “special” thing is to watch a student from Canmore and one from Spain begin to communicate about their own languages.
French and English are the two standard languages available to students to schools across the country.
