Hands-on learning is how students are being taught Spanish in grades K-3 in Star Valley. Teachers Kirk Hoopes and Trevor Buchanan put an active spin on teaching Spanish at Afton and Thayne elementary schools.

The so called “active spin” is part of the Total Physical Response (TPR) method that both Hoopes and Buchanan are teaching, which makes the students physically and mentally active in whatever they are learning. This method makes it so that the students don’t just hear it, but they see it.

“We try to make Spanish fun for the kids,” said Hoopes about his teaching methods. Hoopes says that he uses motivation in the classroom, which helps students learn more effectively.

Students begin in kindergarten with learning words for colors, numbers, shapes, sizes, and just simple vocabulary in general. They continue through first grade and in second grade they begin learning the alphabet and a small amount of conversational speaking. Then, students go through third grade learning more Spanish, even being required to pass of the Spanish alphabet.

“First grade has surprised me the most with how they pick it up,” Buchanan said and Hoopes said, “You’d be amazed at how well a kindergartner can pick up Spanish.”

Both teachers use many games as teaching tools, as well as songs to help the students learn the Spanish concepts in a fun, active way. When teaching methods like these are used, rather than the “sit in a desk and listen to a lecture” method, students get excited and energetic about learning.

This is the third year that the school district has implemented this type of Spanish program in the elementary schools. Before that, students learned Spanish through a program called “Salsa”, which was presented through a series of videotapes. The “Salsa” program wasn’t near as effective for students as the current program is.

When asked about the challenges of teaching concepts of a new language to elementary students, both agree that being in so many classrooms during a week can be tough, even though students are only taught an hour of Spanish per week.

Hoopes teaches 21 different classes each week and Buchanan teaches 17, which means that both have hundreds of students to remember.

It is the hope of both Hoopes and Buchanan that the school district will one day continue the Spanish program for K-12. Right now, the Spanish program ends when a student begins fourth grade and it doesn’t pick back up again until eighth grade as an elective. During the time between the end of third grade and eighth grade, students forget much of what they learned. If the program were to be extended, it would allow the students who wished to, to keep learning consistently so they didn’t lose anything they had learned throughout their schooling experience.

The Spanish program doesn’t have a set curriculum like other programs in the district, which allows the two teachers to come up with their own lesson plans and teach the way that they decide is most effective, not the way someone else does who doesn’t know the situation. In many classes in the district, the teacher has to follow a step, by step, by step, and by step process for teaching kids, which doesn’t allow them to adjust their teaching styles to meet the needs of the students.

“You have to really use your own resources,” said Hoopes while commenting about not having that set curriculum like other teachers. “The best part about it all is teaching the kids in fun ways.”