She’s often asked whether it's true that language learning is easier when it starts at a young age, to which she answers with an unequivocal “yes.” That’s what makes it so wonderful, 她说, that Spanish starts in pre-kindergarten at 澳门官方老葡京.

“When you start as a baby, it is the same as when you learn your first language,” said Ms. 马丁内斯说，他来自墨西哥城. She recalled her own experience learning English as an older student, and how difficult it was to learn pronunciation. “In pre-kindergarten, they are like sponges. 他们很吸引人，很吸引人, so it’s easy for them to play and have fun, but at the same time they are learning. Parents sometimes tell me that their kids start using Spanish words at home. And because they’re learning from a native speaker, the pronunciation is right on.”

Unlike many traditional language learning classes, engaging activities rather than memorization are at the center of each lesson. 是女士. Martinez leads her youngest classes through the cutting and gluing of making a craft, she teaches students the Spanish words for everything they are using and building.

Games become more complex as students progress through each grade level. Ms. Martinez uses bear figurines to teach color, 大小, and family words; numbered linking blocks become the foundation for little houses, teaching counting and household words in the process. There are interactive Spanish-language memory and matching games, and a rollicking game of pass-the-ball as students stand in a circle and count off numbers in Spanish.

“用小的。, little ones it’s amazing because in their first month they have trouble putting the blocks together. They’re learning to manipulate toys as much as they’re learning the language. In that way, the challenges are the same challenges they have in any other class,” Ms. 马丁内兹说.

一年级学生Rayhaneh C. said her favorite thing she has learned so far is family words, 比如妈妈的名字, 父亲, 哥哥, 和姐姐. She noted that she has to remember that “girl words”—or feminine nouns—end in an “a” while “boy words”—or masculine nouns—end in an “o.她的同学诺玛. 喜欢记忆游戏, where students have to solve a matching puzzle by identifying images of food and other common objects and calling them by their Spanish names. Both girls want to keep learning Spanish, and hope to get better and better at it until they can talk to Ms. 马丁内斯只用这种语言.

“It’s kind of fun to talk to the Spanish teacher in words that I don’t know yet, 但我会认识他们,诺玛说. “It’s just fun that I can do that.”

As students gain experience with the language, Ms. Martinez shifts her focus to study skills. In third grade, students practice how to take notes as they read a text. They build on this in fourth grade by keeping a composition book to practice vocabulary.

“This is something they will use in the next step in 中学 when they move on to research, 写段落, 接合动词,” Ms. 马丁内兹说. “Everything we do in this room builds on something.”

They even learn about culture and the environment; Day of the Dead celebrations and the migration of Monarch butterflies between the United States and Mexico are part of these lessons. Students create their own passports and “travel”—imaginatively, and within the safety of the classroom—to Spanish-speaking countries and learn about the cultural traditions, 地理位置, 假期, 政府, 风景, 还有那些国家的人民.

Third and fourth graders also participate in a two-year pen pal project with a school in Mexico City in which students from each school share details about their cities, descriptions of themselves and their families, 他们最喜欢的食物, and more—some students even send jokes back and forth. The students alternate between writing in English and Spanish to practice their translation skills. At the end of fourth grade, the two classes have a Zoom call together so they can meet “in person.”

“This was a fantastic interaction because they are the same age,” Ms. 马丁内兹说. “他们是孩子。! They can see they are all kids, just the same, just in different countries with a different culture.”