Language Academy Sacramento

"We are prepared to learn, we are a diverse community..."

Two way Immersion program:

The Language Academy is based on a two-way immersion educational model, the goals of which are:
      • High academic proficiency in two languages
      • High educational attainment
      • Mastery of the state’s content standards
      • Multiculturalism
      • Life skills
      • Community service

In the area of language arts, students speak, read, and write fluently in English and Spanish as measured by the state-standardized assessments and teacher-developed assessments.

Students have the same access to the academic core curriculum as English-speaking students in an enriched English-only program. In order to ensure time on task, the Language Academy has extended the school calendar to 190 days, increased daily instructional minutes and included some Saturday programs as well as summer and/or winter sessions.

Program Model:

At the Language Academy of Sacramento, the method of instruction utilized is the 90-10 model of Two-Way Spanish Immersion in which a majority of the school curriculum is taught in Spanish. Students in kindergarten and first grade receive 90% of their daily instruction in Spanish and 10% in English. Each year, students receive more instruction in English as the percentage of Spanish instruction time begins to decrease. By 5th grade students receive 50% of their daily instruction in Spanish and 50% in English.

Two-Way Immersion 90-10 Model: Percentages of Daily Instruction
Grade	% of Spanish	% of English
K and 1st	90%	10%
2nd	80%	20%
3rd	70%	30%
4th	60%	40%
5th- 8th	50%	50%

In practice, LAS teachers have found that in the 90-10 model, English test scores in second and third grade do not reflect students’ actual achievement. However, by the fourth and fifth grades, students in dual immersion begin to outscore their counterparts in English-only programs. In fact, the real benefit of dual immersion instruction becomes evident in the sixth and seventh grades. That is precisely why the LAS school design incorporates kindergarten through eighth grade and is the rationale for requesting a long-term commitment from every parent who registers their child at the Academy.

Program Duration:

Research has shown that students need at least 7 years to fully develop both conversational and academic proficiency in the second language to that of a native speaker (see graph). For that reason, the Language Academy is a self-contained pre-K through 8th grade school.