Danielle Sauro and Noelle Palumbo’s fourth grade integrated English as a New Language (ENL) team at CV Starr Intermediate School has been on a month-long exploration of Hispanic heritage. The class, which is made up of both native English speakers and English language learners, took this project as a unique opportunity to bond.
“Each student was assigned a country that they researched and shared about with their peers,” Palumbo said. “Celebrating differences and cultural awareness was our way of fostering community in our first weeks of school.”
Students learned everything they could about their assigned country — from political leaders, famous cities and culture to the national anthem, popular food dishes and more. After researching, students created slide presentations that they shared with their peers.
For some students, the country they learned about was foreign to them.
“I didn’t know anything about Panama,” Silas Di Carlo said. After working on the project, he can rattle off facts like an expert.
“Their traditional dish is seafood or raw fish marinated in lime juice,” he said. “Their National Anthem and their national animal are cool too. It’s the Panamanian golden frog.”
“Their national flower is white and it’s called butterfly jasmine,” she said excitedly.
For other students, the project was much more personal. Isis Alvarado did her project on Honduras and explained to her classmates that her family is from a state on the southern border of El Salvador called Lempira. Isis’s parents were born in Honduras and taught her a lot about the country as she worked on her project. She learned that her dad harvested coffee sometimes, filling great big buckets with beans. She also learned that he speaks one of the country’s indigenous languages.
“We had hoped that we would foster a trusting and respectful classroom community by helping our ENL students share their culture,” Palumbo said. “Our non-ENL students were very excited, curious and respectful about learning about other cultures. Our ENL students felt proud to share their heritage instead of embarrassed. It was a really beautiful moment to celebrate differences.”