The Monticello-based Arkansas Early College High School (AECHS) won three awards at the State Foreign Language Festival in Conway on March 1. Three Spanish students represented AECHS, a statewide distance-learning college credit program for high school students. AECHS is a unit of the Southeast Arkansas Education Service Cooperative in Monticello.
Spanish students Landry Strong of Star City High School and Josh Small and Cameron Carter of Piggott High School each won a state honor.
From Star City, Strong won first place in Intermediate Spanish reading. He had to read aloud a Spanish paragraph for a contest judge. Strong won for the quality of his pronunciation, reading speed, and voice inflection. From Piggott, Small won second place in Elementary Spanish conversation. He had to describe a series of drawings in Spanish before a judge. He won because of the high number of factual and creative comments he made. Carter, also from Piggott, won a second place trophy, because she was one of two students left standing in the Elementary Spanish vocabulary bee, which is similar to a spelling bee. Students suffer elimination at the first mistake. Carter had to translate English words to Spanish and vice versa.
The University of Central Arkansas (UCA) hosted the State Foreign Language Festival. Only students who won district awards could compete in the state contest. The Arkansas Foreign Language Teachers Association (AFLTA) sponsored the competition. On the Conway campus, Small, Strong, and Carter competed in the Main Hall with other Spanish students from several high schools. The three AECHS students received their trophies during the awards ceremony in the Main Hall Auditorium. Marcos Protheroe is the AECHS Spanish instructor. While he has 13 years of teaching experience, this is his first year in Arkansas.
“Our students’ have put the AECHS Spanish program on the map,” he said. “Teachers from other schools are amazed at how well our students speak Spanish. At the beginning of the school year, my classes found the immersion method a little tough at first, but they’ve learned to love it, and now, they’re speaking Spanish.”
Small, Strong, and Carter, along with other AECHS students, have to speak Spanish during the entire class. When they do not understand something, they have to use Spanish clarification expressions, such as No sé (I don’t know) and No entiendo (I don’t understand). “My students don’t speak Spanish in English class, so I remind them that they can’t speak English in Spanish class,” Protheroe said. The students study social skills, such as introducing themselves, scheduling an appointment, and interviewing for a job. They also learn how to read and write essays that are related to the social skills they are studying.
Protheroe moved to Monticello from San Juan, Puerto Rico in July 2007. He previously worked for the University of Puerto Rico and New England School of Languages (NESOL) in San Juan. He grew up in Jacksonville, Florida.
In addition to Spanish, AECHS currently teaches college credit courses in art, math, English, history, psychology, and microcomputer applications. The program reaches various high schools in Arkansas through a closed-circuit TV system.
AECHS students around the state take the college classes at their respective high schools. Instructors in Monticello teach them via compressed interactive video (CIV). The students and instructors sit in front of TV screens outfitted with cameras. They see and talk to each other in real time.
After successfully completing the courses, the AECHS students receive high school credit from their resident schools and college credit from their local college, university, or technical school.
The present foreign language courses are Elementary Spanish 1 and 2. Next year, AECHS will offer Advanced Placement (AP) Spanish, also known as Intermediate Spanish 1 and 2.
New course offerings also include physics and biology. AECHS registration is underway for the 2008-09 school year. Laura Creach is the program coordinator.