The Taos News
Tempo March 5,1998 C3
Language Arts

Agnes Chavez took matters into her own hands when she recognized a crying need for teaching Spanish to children

Story by Rick Romancito

Sitting in a circle surrounded by active, eager preschoolers, Agnes Chavez almost glows with enthusiasm. Holding up a card with a picture of a frog, she leads questioningly, "Donde esta?-followed by a child's quick response: "El sapo!" Next, she moves on very fast through her stack of cards, each with a picture of an easily recognizable animal, with its name printed below in Spanish. One by one, the children fire back a response, perfectly pronounced.

Chavez is laying the foundation for a second language to this mostly non-Hispanic group of children as rapidly as it takes them to identify the connection between word and picture. As simple as it sounds, it is a method Chavez developed that is gaining popularity in local schools due to its home-grown approach to teaching Spanish. Her curriculum is called "Spanish Through Art and Games." "The goal of the Spanish Through Art and Games program is to teach conversational Spanish to children using a fun and interactive approach and to develop confidence in the child's own ability to learn a language," Chavez said in the introduction to her program. I believe that the process of learning a new a language in a positive way can help develop in children an appreciation and respect for different languages and cultures in general.

"Many educational companies produce Spanish language curriculums which schools are able to purchase asa package, Chavez said. But too often these packages are geared specifically to certain age groups and developmental levels, sometimes leading to their uneven or inconsistent use from grade to grade. Knowing this, Chavez said she began thinking about how she might create one of her own that could be integrated and applied to any age or level -and that could be taught by virtually any teacher.

"The Spanish Through Art and Games program was designed to provide teachers with an easy format for teaching Spanish to preschool-elementary level children, with a particular emphasis on children who do not have the opportunity to hear and practice Spanish on a regular basis," she said. "It provides the components of basic conversational Spanish. All the learning material is compiled in the form of games, art projects visual activity sheets, songs, video and storytelling."

Chavez, who was born in Cuba, is perhaps better known as a local artist whose sophisticated works combine an astute knowledge of spatial relationships with musings on humanity's next evolutionary step. Her pieces, usually shown at New Directions Gallery on Taos Plaza, often show translucent drawings set within a sculptural framework, suggesting the artist's need to experiment with time and space; In some respects, her work in the Spanish Through Art and Games program has grown from similar musings with regard to her young son, Silviano.

Three years ago, after Silviano was old enough for Chavez to begin thinking about going back to work, Chavez said she wanted to do something that would incorporate her son so she could be with him. "So I came up with the idea of doing Spanish, which I taught before, and combine it with art," she said. "When I first came to Taos, about 10 years ago, I taught art at 00oonah Art Center {at Taos Pueblo). I did that on and off for six years. Then I started to teach Spanish to adults for two or three years. So when this came about, I was driving along and thought, 'Hey, I know what. I'll teach Spanish through art.' I put the two together like peanut butter and jelly."

After a year and a half of developing her program, Taos Valley School hired her to teach Spanish. She said she was told that Spanish teachers there often come and go. When they leave, the children had to go back to square one. And new teachers don't know what the other teacher did. "There was no integrated curriculum," she said. That was her big chance to create something that would be useful in a wide variety of applications.

Chavez admits that she doesn't have a lot of experience when it comes to creating educational tools such as this. However, she said she has common sense and an ability to recognize what she saw as a need in local schools. Right now, she teaches her program in private schools such as Anansi Day School and Leaping Lizards Preschool in Taos. But her big aim is to find a way to make her program attractive to public schools. "I want to take it to where the majority of Hispanic kids go to school," she said. The reason, she said, is because many Hispanic children she knows of are growing up in households where the dominant language spoken is English. By teaching her curriculum to Hispanic children, Chavez said she is hoping to reinforce the value of their culture to them, which she sees as fast being replaced by a homogeneous American society that places assimilation over ethnic identity.

To this end, when Anansi Day School opted to purchase her curriculum, the first thing Chavez did was to buy a computer with which she used to better design and refine elements of her program. In addition, she is planning to create a video tape and a CD-ROM for other teachers to use in the future. She also takes her students out of the classroom for "cultural immersion" sessions. Her students have visited the likes of historian Arsenio Cordova, foreign language teacher Larry Torres and Mariachi El Tigre maestro Nick Branchal at Taos High School.

Chavez said the greatest pleasure she gets out of teaching this program comes when she is greeted in a local grocery store by one of her little students, saying a simple, "¡Ola! ¿Como esta?"