The Daily News

A group of eighth-grade middle school students in Wahpeton are wrapping up their first-ever quarter of Spanish class. The Wahpeton School Board made it a goal in 2008 to begin offering a foreign language class at the middle school.

High school Spanish instructor Linda Johnson was elected to do the job and gave the board an update Wednesday at their monthly meeting.

Although the first quarter's class size was under 15 students, more than 50 expressed interest in the Spanish course at registration in the spring.

Eighth-grade Spanish students, Lucas Petersen and Brandon Wixo, completed a series of speaking dialogues Thursday at Wahpeton Middle School. The class is wrapping up the district's first-ever quarter of a foreign language at the middle school level. Instructor Linda Johnson told the Wahpeton School Board Wednesday it's been an enjoyable quarter. photo by Erin Hevern Advertisement

"The kids have been able to pick it up really fast and I think that's surprising," Johnson told the board. "My kids, in nine weeks, at the middle school knew more vocabulary than my high school kids, but my high school kids are doing grammar and will be able to speak."

While Johnson went into teaching eighth-grade Spanish without a lesson plan, two books — "Exploring Spanish and Exploring Spanish for the Middle School" — were a big help in creating unique ways to help the students learn the language.

Johnson aimed to introduce as much as she could during the nine week course.

Every two to three days, Johnson said she presented a new subject, which included days of the week, months of the year and seasons. There were no tests, she said, just worksheets, puzzles and larger projects.

The most successful project Johnson assigned had each student put together a "fold book" where they explored the Spanish terms for each member of their family.

"I told them they could put anything they wanted to in it," Johnson said. "They were supposed to write about 'mi familia.'"

A second project, which Johnson called a big mistake, had each student create an alphabet book. They were given seven letters a piece and were instructed to find a Spanish word in a Spanish dictionary correlating with each word.

"I think it was a little too much work for them," Johnson said, adding the students had trouble understanding a Spanish dictionary. "Next time we are actually going to sit down with a dictionary and go through it."

Although not every student enjoyed Spanish as a foreign language, Johnson said it served as a directive for some students. They may choose a different elective or new foreign language once they hit the high school level.

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