TAMPA –Spanish Immersion Camp is not just classroom learning; it is fun experiential and natural language acquisition, on purpose! Children in ReDefiners World Languages’ Spanish Summer Camp are exploring new cultures and languages through art, sports, food and music.
It’s not just entertainment, children can enhance their Spanish speaking and vocabulary naturally through games and by creating a setting from them to comfortably interact in Spanish.
“We all speak Spanish in this camp,” said by Monica Suarez, the Spanish Instructor in the camp, “Kids are always very happy to get involved and learn in the process.”
As reported in the 2013 CNN Money, the ability to communicate in a language other than English is the most sought after job skill in both private and public sectors. With no nation-wide mandate to incorporate a proficiency based language education requirement, only 15% of elementary schools across the U.S. report offering such a curriculum and of those, funding continues to be cut, (“America’s Foreign Language Deficit”. The reality is that the U.S. needs “diplomats, intelligence and foreign policy experts, politicians, military leaders, business leaders, scientists, physicians, entrepreneurs, managers, technicians, historians, artists, and writers who are proficient in languages other than English” (Forbes, 2012). ReDefiners World Languages exists to fulfill this gap in language education here in Hillsborough County.
As a non-profit organization, ReDefiners always aims to offer children in Prek-5th grade high-quality and innovative language learning experience while developing a compassionate community of global citizens. In addition to Spanish summer camp, ReDefiners also offers Mandarin and Arabic enrichment programs during the school year.
This summer over 15 kids are participating in weekly Spanish camps and 90 more students are being exposed to one of three languages, Arabic, Spanish or Mandarin for free at one of three area community recreation centers as part of a summer program partnership with the University Area Community Development Center. Executive Director and Founder of ReDefiners World Languages believes that access to high quality language programs should be widely accessible and will continue to partner with area schools and community centers to expose children to opportunities and provide choice in enrichment “ReDefiners is about ReDefining opportunities, educationally, socially and economically for all children and we do it through world languages.” Says founder Chantelle Daniels.
For more information about Language Programs with ReDefiners World Languages, call 813-530-2313 or visit www.redefinerswl.org.