The International Spanish Academies project (ISA) is a bilingual, Spanish/English educational model that the Spanish Department of Education and Science promotes in collaboration with American and Canadian educational authorities. Broadly defined, it is a teaching model based on a shared curriculum of both languages, used for primary as well as secondary education.
What is an "ISA" ? top
The International Spanish Academies (ISA) constitute an educational program in English and Spanish through the collaboration of American and Canadian public schools and the Ministry of Education and Science of Spain, which aims to fulfill the following objectives:
1. Encourage students’ academic success in all subjects of the curriculum.
2. Educate students in the values of multicultural education to foster international communication and respect among different cultures.
3. Train students to express themselves and effectively communicate in English and Spanish in their personal relationships and in an academic setting.
4. Facilitate and promote the access of students to prestigious centers of higher education throughout the U.S., Spain/Europe and Latin America.
5. Prepare the students for their professional development in an international context.
6. Promote the participation of distinct groups and social sectors of the community in an integrative, educational project.
An ISA can be established in a school, or division within a school (elementary, middle or high school), that is starting or is already developing a quality educational program in English and Spanish.
The Ministry of Education and Science of Spain makes the following resources and programs available to the ISAs:
1. Access to double academic certification.
2. Specialized visiting teachers.
3. Teacher exchange programs with Spain.
4. Language and Culture assistants.
5. Teacher training courses in Spanish universities.
6. Student exchanges.
7. Partnerships with Spanish schools.
8. Participation in a North American network of ISAs.
9. Didactic materials and resources.
10. Pedagogical advice.
Curriculum top
The ISAs embody an integrated curriculum that will prepare the students to later participate in international programs of recognized prestige to complete their higher education degrees. The language of instruction is English and Spanish, in the proportion suggested in Figure 1. The exact proportion is to be determined by the school districts and/or schools, bearing in mind that the objective is to obtain written and oral competency in both languages.
The curriculum is comprised of two blocks:
1. A general component which incorporates the content required of all students of the district/state/province (Canada). This refers to the district’s established curriculum and the district’s own evaluation. The special character of this program results from the fact that a significant part of the instruction is delivered in Spanish.
2. A specific Spanish Language and Culture component, which includes elements of all Spanish-speaking countries and applies the National Standards for Spanish Learning:
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Communication in the Spanish language.
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Cultures of the various Spanish-speaking countries.
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Connections with other subjects: Thematic Unities.
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Comparisons of languages and cultures.
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Communities: Use of Spanish in and outside the school environment.
The specific component does not necessarily imply increasing the amount of instruction time, but rather making an effort to integrate it into the general curriculum of the district/school. The means of integration is to be decided by the school that opts to become an InternationalSpanishAcademy.
Figure 1
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INTERNATIONAL SPANISH ACADEMIES
Curricular Proposal
SPECIFIC COMPONENT
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Percentage of Spanish as language of instruction
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Specific Content (Spanish language and cultures of Spanish-speaking peoples)
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Evaluation
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K-5
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Between 50-100%.
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Reading and Writing
Environmental Knowledge (Social science and/or Nature)
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Certificate of Completion
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6-8
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Approximately 40%.
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Language and Communication
Literature and Art
Social Sciences and Nature
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Certificate of Completion
Project
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9-12
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Approximately 30%.
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Language and Communication
Literature and Art
Economy, Society, and International Relations in the contemporary world
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Project
External assessment
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Methodology top
The methodology of the ISAs is based on two main principals: the instruction of language as a means or vehicle, and the instruction of other subjects in a foreign language as well as in the students’ native language.
1. Language Instruction
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Communicative: Communicative language instruction aims for the simultaneous and integrated development of the dimensions that configure the said competence, and that will allow the student to use language correctly and adequately. The communicative competence include:
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Formal or linguistic competence of the language.
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Cultural competence and knowledge of the world.
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Conversational competence.
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Macrolinguistic or textual competence.
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Integrated with other skills.
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Based on tasks and projects that permit global learning and the use of the foreign language in real-life activities that are appropriate for the context and the specific student body.
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Based on the National and State Standards established in almost all of the states. These standards provide a common framework to measure the level of learning achieved.
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Based on the contents learned through the languages of instruction.
2. General Instruction
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Multicultural education, which permits the students to become aware of the value of cultural diversity and to develop multicultural competence.
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Pedagogy appropriate to the context: state, type of school, students.
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Methodology based on interdisciplinary projects.
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Cooperative learning that permits meaningful and interactive learning through collaboration and collective agreements.
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Learning through ICTs.
Resources top
An ISA should be able to access the greatest number of the following resources as possible:
1. Didactic Materials in Spanish
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Audiovisual materials.
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Computer programs and equipment.
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School and classroom libraries.
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Authentic materials.
2. Human Resources
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Experienced bilingual teachers.
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Specialized visiting teachers.
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Exchange teachers.
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Language and Culture assistants.
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Advising services from the Technical Advisors of the Department of Education and Science in the Spanish Embassy.
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Community support: family, institutions, etc.
3. Other Resources
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Access to resource centers.
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Access to the activities and resources of the Cervantes Institute.
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Access to the Spanish Studies Institutes.
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Access to cultural goods: visits to museums and institutions related to the Spanish speaking world, field trips, cultural weeks, etc.
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Use of cultural activities sponsored by the Ministry of Education and Science of Spain.
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School exchanges and partnerships.
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Scholarships for teachers to attend summer courses in Spanish universities.
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Other professional training courses for teachers in Spain and the U.S.
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Stipends for participation in conferences, seminars, work groups, etc.
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Electronic mail server (list server) to announce activities, scholarships, courses, etc.
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Advice for group participation in the creation and publication of didactic materials.
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The Department’s Website:
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Publications.
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Information.
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Links.
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Teaching Staff and Training top
Spanish educational institutions will contribute to the training of the teaching staff, and will offer advanced, methodological proposals that will allow the teaching staff to systematically access continuous, quality training.
From the onset, ISA teachers fit a specific profile, which includes their scientific and didactic training. Each ISA will design a training program to assist its teachers through each phase of training to further develop such a profile. In addition, the training program will monitor the teacher’s continual improvement of their Spanish language skills. Thus, it is recommended that each ISA teacher holds a High Level Diploma of Spanish as a Foreign Language (D.E.L.E. for its acronym in Spanish), or that s/he is in the process of working towards earning one.
Generally, the ISA teachers:
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Oversee that all students learn and develop their skills.
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Are familiar with the languages and cultures they teach and know how to teach them.
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Are capable of evaluating their students and themselves, reflecting on their own teaching practices and learning from their experiences.
Evaluation top
Among other actions, the Spanish overseas educational programs supervise the promotion and organization of mixed curriculums that integrate elements of the Spanish educational system with those of other educational systems. Order 23 from September 1998 creates the foundation for the agreements to be made with external educational institutes. It also establishes in its third point that “the Spanish educational authorities, through their examination services, can initiate systems or instruments to evaluate students’ learning and training achievements and the center’s results.¿ Likewise, in regards to awarding diplomas, the legal framework of the International Spanish Academies decrees that “upon satisfactory completion of any of the three set levels, a certificate will be issued that will validate the studies undertaken within the American and Spanish school systems.¿
1. Student Evaluation and Certification
After completing the two first levels, that is Level 1 (grades K-5) and Level 2 (grades 6-8), the students receive a Diploma certifying their attendance in an InternationalSpanishAcademy during the required years of the respective level.
The evaluation of these levels will be performed in agreement with the methods and instruments used by the district and/or schools, while observing the proportion of instruction in each language.
For the final level, comprised of grades 9 to 12, the evaluation instrument will consist of an external assessment designed specifically to assess the specific component of the established curriculum of the International Spanish Academies. The evaluation will be carried out jointly with the collaboration of teachers responsible for the two curricular components of the InternationalSpanishAcademy; that is, the specific component and the general component. The external assessment will take one of the following forms:
a. A research project, completed in Spanish, that investigates a topic related to the specific component of the curriculum, which pertains to Spanish Language and Spanish-speaking Cultures.
and/or
b. A research paper, written in Spanish, on a topic related to the specific component of the curriculum.
and/or
c. A test in Spanish covering one or more subjects related to the specific component of the curriculum.
The external assessment will evaluate the ability of the student to use Spanish in authentic communicative situations (real or simulated). In other words, it will appraise the student’s comprehension and oral and written expression of the language. In addition, it will assess the student’s ability to listen, speak, read and write, and to visualize and present an idea.
Likewise, it will evaluate the student’s ability to appropriately use the language in a variety of situations and social contexts, for distinctive purposes. It will also consider the ability of the student to integrate areas of knowledge from the specific component of the curriculum.
A scale will be established to assess the above skills.
2. Program Evaluation
Each ISA will design a program evaluation plan in accordance with its own objectives. The plan will specify the information to be collected to determine the progress of the students and the success of the program, the due dates and the persons responsible. To guarantee the quality of the project, the school shall submit an evaluation report within three months after the end of the school year as justification for achieving the determined objectives and complying with the requiremen
Legal Framework top
In the United States, the International Spanish Academies may be initiated in institutions with which collaboration agreements are established. The development will be suited to the prevailing regulations in each school and governed simultaneously by state and federal education laws.
Within the Spanish guidelines, it is recommended to dictate a specific Order of development that adapts the regulations elaborated in Order 23 of September 1998 to the North American context. Order 23 from September 1998 creates the foundation for agreements be made with the institutions referred to in Article 7.1.d of the Royal Decree 1027/1993, of June 25, which governs the Educational Programs Overseas. In these guidelines, the Spanish Academies are to be recognized as their own entities within the Programs of the Ministry of Education and Science through the Department of Education at the Embassy of Spain.
Duration of the contracts
Within this special idiosyncrasy, the subscribed contracts with interested institutions should be at least 4 years long. These contracts can be renewed or cancelled by mutual agreement.
Supervision of the Agreement
The Department of Education, or the person delegated by it, will supervise the observance of the signed agreement between the Department of Education and the Teaching Center. In order to guarantee the quality of the project, each International Spanish Academy needs to remit an evaluation report and an activities report within one month after the end of the scholastic year as justification for achieving the determined objectives and complying with the requirements set forth in the agreement.
Recognition of Studies
The development guidelines will govern the conditions and requirements to validate in Spain the studies that were completed in the International Spanish Academies.
You can download a copy of the program of cooperation in .pdf format: Program of cooperation (44 Kb)