Calvin Christian High School

March 21, 2016

Context
This unit is designed for Spanish 1 students. I will be teaching two class
periods. First period has 26 students who are all white, one is an inclusive student
with Downs syndrome, 11 are women, and 15 are men. During third period, I have
23 students who are all white as well, except for one international student. He
comes from Korea and speaks four languages and is now learning Spanish. There
are 10 women and 13 men. They all have being born and raised in the United
States, therefore they are mainly fluent in English. Likewise, the international
student, who as I was told, was in an immersion schools that taught them English as
mostly all schools in Korea do. Their ages are between 14 to 18 years old. As a
private school, most of the students come from a middle class social status. The
school also provides economic assistance for those who may need it, but they are a
minority. In my classes it is hard to tell who is from low class status, but I do not
discard the possibility there may be a few. According to what the teacher told me,
students from the first periods are mostly in advance classes. And students from
regular classes stock together in her last periods of classes. I have noticed that
students from first and third period, are respectful on listen to the teacher; they
seem to be more attentive to what is going on in the classroom, and when the
teacher speaks they easily stay quiet and listen. A couple of times, while observing
in seventh period, the teacher has to raise her voice a little bit more and has to
repeat a couple of times more to get the students to quiet down. Students from
first and third period seem to have better attention skills; although, they may also
be quieter because they are still sleeping or have not eat lunch yet. They as well
seem to be quite different in other areas. For example, I have had the opportunity

to grade a couple of their quizzes, and some have really neat, clear, and
understandable handwriting, while others are hard to understand. This suggest that
some students may have stronger abilities in motor or spatial/sequential ordering.
Also, the way they answer the questions vary; some are direct, clear, and
understandable, while others are vaguer and unclear. This suggests that some
students have better higher order thinking or are better at expressing their thoughts
in writing. This is a private Christian school, which makes it easier to include my
Christian faith in the classroom. All students come from a Christian background,
except for a few international students. According to the teacher, parents are very
supported and are involved in their childrens education. Also, she mentioned how
most of the students are motivated to learn and how the ones who are not feel the
peer pressure to do good as well.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2013-2014 school
year), there are 492 students from grades 7 to 12. Out of these students only 7 are
Asians, 8 Blacks, and 18 are Hispanics. Seventh and eighth grade are in a different
building, so they do not get mixed in the classrooms with the high schoolers. I am
working with high school students from grades 9 to 12 only. In high school itself,
there are a total of 362 students and the percentage of minorities seems to be
consistent. The school was using a series of books call Exprsate, this books
teach mostly Spanishs grammar, which is the traditional way. However, the
Spanish department decided to use this year the newest method Teaching
Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling. The method combines Dr. James
Ashers TPR, the most effective method for acquiring a second language since it was
invented in 1960, and Dr. Stephen Krashens language acquisition strategies
(TPRStories.com). The idea is that students acquired a second language just as

they did their first one. By performing the stories, they see what is being say, get
familiar with the language by listening, they can add on to it to make it their own
and be more interested and engaged, and while they have fun and created
relationships, they also learn grammar, reading, writing, and vocabulary. They
started this year with Spanish 1 only, and plan to implemented in the fooling years
as they move up in their level. They decided not to use it this year with Spanish 2,3
and 4 because they already start learning another way, and they do not want to
mess them up or confused them.
As I mentioned before, this is a private school and it does not depend on
state or local funds. For this reason, only families from middle class can pay the
tuition to enroll their children here. They do offer economic help for students who
want to attend there but need economic assistance. To cover this expenses, they
look for donors, and some churches sponsor their members. They have almost the
same access to technology because all students are provided with notebooks, but
they need internet access as well in their houses, which I do not know if all of them
have. Even so, it is a privilege that many school districts cannot provide for their
students. The school is located in a neighborhood where white people is the
majority. According to the Community Research Institute in 2010 83.3% of the
population is white. With only a 6.3% of Hispanics, and 2.0% of Blacks (cridata.org).
This may be an explain for the lack of diversity in the school. Also, the institute
reposted that in 2010 only 6.4% of the population lives below poverty (cridata.org).
Which is not a big percentage.