Needs Assessment at Every Level

Mega-Level Results

Large societal scale results of my project Saturday School for Spanish Speakers would be increased quality of life for the Spanish speaking community, better citizens and lower crime levels.

Macro-Level Results

The School would deliver a higher quality of life to Spanish speakers by increasing their pride in their heritage, opening new economic possibilities with Spanish fluency in both verbal and written language, and by increasing integration into the United States' society and work force by creating more college educated native Spanish speakers.

Micro-Level Results

The individual students would have greater knowledge of their own mother tongue and culture. This knowledge can be transferred to English, their second language, and should facilitate learning in English. The Spanish speaking students should do better academically in school with more skills in their first language.

My Ideal Vision

My ideal vision would be a fully bi-lingual child of Spanish speaking immigrants who could utilize the native culture and language, both verbal and written, to great advantage in our society or the world. This vision would include utilizing this knowledge for transferring skills, such as reading comprehension, to English. Upon graduating from the Saturday school program these students should be as fluent in Spanish as in English, and proficient in both.

Research Request

This is the research request letter I sent out to Spanish teachers who have special courses for Spanish for Spanish speakers:

Dear

I was referred to you and your program of Spanish for Spanish Speakers at the Middle School level. I am a graduate student at UNCG pursuing a MEd with emphasis on Instructional Design (ID). I am also fluent in Spanish, have lived in Peru for many years, and currently teach at a nearby school.

For my ID course this semester I am designing a Saturday school program for elementary age native Spanish speakers similar to the Chinese community Saturday school which teaches the children their mother tongue language and culture.

I believe we could actually initiate such a program. In researching this possibility I wondered what you see as the needs for these children in such a program. Your input is invaluable and may be either emailed to me or sent by mail. I thank you in advance for taking the time to help us with this worthy investigation.

Yours truly,
Aerin Benavides

The Focus

Lamenting lack of education among the poor world wide and wanting to find a way to reach them, I will concentrate my project on a nearby population with a perceived need of native language education as well as a need for familiarity with their own culture which could promote self-esteem.

Many immigrant farm workers in our area were not well educated in their country of origin. While they are able to pass on the spoken mother tongue, Spanish, they are not able to pass on history, culture, literature or even written grammar. Lacking these key components to Spanish, their children are not able to transfer these skills to their second language studies, in English. Knowledgeable pride in the culture their parents came from is lacking as well.

It has been noted that older Latin American students, especially those born in the United States to new immigrants, those who reach college level instruction, find a newborn interest in their parents' native language when they learn of their culture and history. Using this idea as a springboard, as well as the recorded successes of the Chinese and Korean Saturday Schools that promote their parents' culture and language, I will design a similar program for elementary age students in the Latin American immigrant population of Chapel Hill/Carrboro.

I will first assess needs and develop a rough overall plan, or Instructional Design. A method of needs assessment would be to survey area teachers of Spanish for Spanish speakers, as well as families in the area who attend Spanish Mass at St. Thomas More School where I work. With the parents' permission, I could test some students to assess their level of knowledge of culture of origin, as well as their reading and comprehension levels in Spanish.

With this information about what is needed I will analyze what the first course of action would be for a start-up program.

If I can possibly do it, I would start a weekly class and re-assess the students and parents at the end of the semester. I will explore other avenues of instruction, as were used in the Columbia project Hannum discussed.

By focusing on the needs of one population close to home, sensitive to their needs to survive in an ever more demanding world as well as to their cultural heritage and values, I hope to find a way for these students to excel in our system. I would hope to promote cultural pride and unity, as the Chinese and Korean populations have done with their programs.

The Technological Advantage

If we give a small poor child a computer that is self standing and operates in modest conditons with a wind up battery, will that child learn? What will that child learn?

Currently in a wealthy setting if the child is not given some direction or knowledge of judgement (not every source is valid) a misperception may be harder to correct than no conception at all.

There exists a program that does just this--gives a small child a computer. The light on the computer may be the only light at night in the house. The keyboard is sand and waterproof, well sealed. The antena conects the computer to the internet. But what is there the child can comprehend? Images? Language? What language? Where is the teacher?

What is education without the teacher?

The Design for Development

How can we design for the 90% of the world who have little to spend? I would like to do my project on that--pick the Sudan, or another African country, and see what we could do to design instruction for the average 40% who do not get to go to school. And there's no Santa.