In the United States, research on reading difficulties is predominantly carried out by scholars who project findings on L1 English reading difficulty to generalized difficulty in learning a second language (L2; e.g., Galuschka et al., 2020; Shaywitz & Shaywitz, 2020; cf. Sparks, 2023). This research extrapolation creates a negative feedback…

As a result of a university partnership, elementary students at two midwest Catholic elementary schools have been provided with exploratory world language instruction (FLEX) from pre-service teachers. To investigate students' attitudes and learning of Spanish, researchers interviewed second and fourth graders. The students' parents and pre-service…

This essay offers a candid overview of the past one hundred years of preK-fifth grade Spanish language teaching and learning in the United States. Among the topics addressed are numbers of programs, program models, and factors that impact the success of learners and programs.

A quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, non-equivalent control group design was used to examine the effect of a mobile gamification application on third and fourth grade students' Spanish language achievement and student academic self-efficacy. In this study, the treatment group's Spanish language instruction was through the use of…

In this mixed methods action research study, the teacher-researcher designed a blended learning model for a fifth grade class of Spanish in an independent private school in Northern New Jersey. The need for the study was to update the Spanish curricula, allocate resources to promote Spanish outside the classroom by providing a cost-effective…

Teachers and students can have ambitious educational goals, including critical reflection on the world around them, both that which is "home" and that which is "foreign." The environmental questions which face us all can be part of the elementary school curriculum, and the Foreign Language Elementary School (FLES) contribution…

Foreign Language in Elementary School (FLES) teachers in the West Des Moines schools incorporate the Day of the Dead into the fourth grade curriculum each year. The teachers discuss the Day of the Dead celebration at the Art Center, and many ask for volunteers from fourth grade to participate in the event. Student presentations include a wide…

During the 2010-2011 school year, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) piloted the After-School Global Language Opportunity Benefiting All Learners (GLOBAL) program for 12 weeks at eight different school sites. This school year the program expanded to 25 weeks and 11 sites. GLOBAL is an approach to learning that allows students to develop basic…

At Sonrisas Spanish School, educators are interested in finding ways to teach children in the way children actually learn. Their mission is to create high quality, standards-based Spanish classes and curriculum materials that are both effective for teachers and also provide a positive foreign language learning experience for students. They value…

This study investigates children's attitudes and technology use for learning Spanish, and examines the type of technology-enhanced learning activities they enjoy. A survey with two versions was developed to gather attitudes and opinions of 2,220 children in grades K-2 and 3-8 in eight small rural school districts in the Midwest of the United…

Sistema de formas en colores (SFC) is a symbols-based system for teaching Spanish grammatical structures and concepts within a communicative context in the elementary school. The (ACTFL) Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Preparing for the 21st Century states that, "While grammar and vocabulary are essential tools for communication, it is…

Foreign Language Elementary Summer Camp is a fantastic way to spend part of the summer. For the past ten years in Glastonbury, Connecticut, the authors have offered a variety of foreign language elementary camps that meet daily for three hours for three to four weeks during July. Currently, they offer camps for Chinese, English Language Learners…

According to the Theory of Multiple Intelligences of Howard Gardner, there are eight intelligences. In the present study with two FLES classes, 35 students were asked to present Spanish vocabulary to their class to link their preferences of techniques used to introduce the vocabulary to their classmates with a spectrum of their multiple…

Teaching Spanish at the K-5 level is a passion of mine, and the author would like to share some of the practical applications that she finds most rewarding and effective. She has found enthusiastic response to the creation of detailed language learning kits that are rooted in storytelling, but expanded to include home-made board games,…

The question going into this action research was, "How can a language teacher encourage more positive attitudes toward language learning while building a learning community?" After incorporating "I Can" statements into the curriculum, more than 100 third grade students were surveyed. The survey asked what they thought they could do in Spanish.…