Spanglish Speakers

Last Saturday Ryan, Katie, and I kicked off our first official Spanglish Speakers meeting. Spanglish Speakers is a mentorship program we started that links some of the fifth graders from Katie’s and my schools with some sophomores and juniors from Ryan’s high school. Ryan’s school, Liceo de Hombres, is the best public high school in Los Angeles, so his students will serve as great role models for Katie’s and my fifth graders, some of whom come from rough backgrounds and all of whom could use a bit more positive attention in their lives.

Our first meeting was a huge success. To start the morning we gave every student a puzzle piece and had them find their groups – or teams – by finding the other pieces of their puzzle. In total we had four teams, each with two high schoolers and two fifth graders. The teams then chose some pretty fantastic names (Team Awesome, The Brave Race, The Crazy Team, and The Princesses for our group of all girls), introduced themselves in English, and made some amazing team posters. After recess and snacktime (two things we didn’t initially plan for but realized quite quickly would be desperately needed), we regrouped and painted our own Spanglish Speakers t-shirts. It was a great Saturday morning filled with both Spanish and English (hence the “Spanglish”) and lots of getting to know each other.

Spanglish Speakers will not only be a beneficial experience for the fifth graders, who get to spend some time with intelligent and positive role models, but also for the high schoolers, who get to serve as leaders and teachers. Community service is still not a very common concept in Chile, so the fact that these high schoolers are dedicating two Saturday mornings a month to come and speak English with some fifth graders is pretty darn impressive. Katie, Ryan, and I worked really hard in the weeks leading up to last Saturday, and we all agreed that it couldn’t have gone any better! We have some pretty exciting ideas for future meetings up our sleeves, too, so stay tuned!