Can the use of digital tools increase student engagement in a Spanish dual immersion classroom?

Students enrolled in a two-way immersion school are expected to leave the program fluent and literate in Spanish and English.  This goal becomes more challenging as students show less interest in learning and applying the Spanish language as they get older.  With the changing times, educators have to also evolve and incorporate different teaching strategies and tools that may engage and help grasp students’ interests.

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Why digital tools?

In the district where I teach, there are two Spanish dual immersion schools.  They are both 90-10 models, which means that all students begin kindergarten with Spanish instruction 90% of school day and 10% in English.  As students progress through the years, the percentage of Spanish instructional time decreases and English instructional time increases until instruction is at 50% Spanish and 50% English.  As many studies suggest, it becomes more difficult to engage students in speaking Spanish as they progress through the grades. When they speak with their teachers, they make an effort to speak Spanish, but when they speak with their peers in the classroom, the majority of the students speak English.  It is more challenging to engage the native-Spanish and English speakers during Spanish instruction. At this level Spanish vocabulary becomes more challenging for both the Spanish language learners and native-Spanish speakers.  English becomes the language of choice for most at this level. It is important to find ways to engage students to use Spanish more often in a predominantly English speaking environment.