This video and narrative are a perfect example of how language immersion education is raising up the next generation of bilingual world changers.
"Mackenzie has been attending La ola del lago Spanish Immersion since the program opened two and a half years ago and has done well academically and in terms of grasping and speaking a second language. My wife and I had heard from her teachers throughout her brief career at La ola del lago that she was doing very well in her language development but, since my wife and I do not speak Spanish, we really had no idea what that really meant.
In March we decided to take our children to Mexico for Spring Break and we quickly learned that in a very short time (2 ½ years) our daughter was nearly fluent in Spanish. It was amazing to watch her spend nearly 4 full days speaking Spanish to everyone except her family. Mac was able to get us tables at restaurants, exchange money from American to Pesos with the concierge, order her own drinks and snacks, and interact with Spanish speaking peers at the children’s explorer area. My wife and I were amazed to simply listen to her talk to her new friends and their parents and there seemed to be no limits to her ability to communicate in Spanish. More adult concepts were difficult for her, for example, she did not know how to tell the parents of her new friend from Mexico City to “drive safely” and she struggled translating for us if we were haggling with a merchant off the resort but otherwise Mac was nearly fluent.
As I stated earlier, we knew that she was progressing nicely in her language acquisition, however, to actually see her immersed in Spanish, speaking it constantly, and engaging with native speakers was amazing. Mckenzie’s confidence and joy in speaking Spanish was very apparent and every native speaker that she engaged with made a point to tell her mother and I how good her Spanish was. Most of Spanish speakers she interacted with assumed that her mother or I spoke Spanish because she spoke so well and were surprised when we told them we did not. Everything she has learned in the area of language acquisition, she learned as a result of her immersion at La ola del lago and we could not be happier with her ability to speak and understand Spanish as a result of our decision to place her in an immersion school."