Nuestro Mundo Community School

Two-Way Immersion Bilingual Education

“Our job in education is to pave the way for self-actualization. If a student wants to go into the trades, they go into the trades. If they want to go to law school, they go to law school. Our job is to give them an experience that will not create barriers or hinder them in any way in choosing which path they want to go. They choose their path, and we give them anything they need to have the most paths to choose from.”


Joshua Forehand, Principal/Director Nuestro Mundo

The above is a common sentiment amongst educators, but how does that translate to a school aimed at teaching the English language to non-native speakers? At Nuestro Mundo Community School, an elementary school applying the two-way immersion model, the answer is simply that language acquisition isn’t the only primary goal. Rather, a two-way immersion program brings students from two different language backgrounds together to learn the curriculum in both languages, with each thoughtfully integrated across subjects. Academics is the focus, and conversational language acquisition happens organically.

Principal Forehand says Nuestro Mundo spawned from a grassroots movement 20 years ago in reaction to a large influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants coming to the area. “A small group of like-minded people got together, and they saw that MMSD [Madison Metropolitan School District] really only offers English as a Second Language (ESL), which is mostly pulling students away from not only the core curriculum, but also pulling them away from their English-speaking peers. There was a high school teacher from Memorial, Debora Gil Casado, and a high school teacher from La Follette, Bryan Grau, along with some other people in town who either had an interest in education or the Latino community who found themselves rallied together around this cause.

“They went to the school district, and the district wasn’t quite ready to implement something like this at that time. So they said let’s start a charter school. This group started doing their research and meeting with experts. They met with a professor from the University of Minnesota from the Center for Advanced Research in Language Acquisition (CARLA). She kind of guided them through the pedagogy and things they may not have been familiar with. They landed on this two-way immersion model.”

To effectively administer this model of education, teachers are trained to facilitate conversation around the subject matter. This way, students aren’t just having social conservations, but conservations that include academic vocabulary related to what they’re learning. According to the research of Virginia Collier and Wayne Thomas, the most significant downside to the two-way immersion model is progress is initially slower than a conventional ESL approach. Over time, however, student progress erupts to the point where non-native English speakers are often surpassing their English-speaking peers.

Principal Forehand says, “The reason is [non-native English speakers] have access to math, science, social studies, all the content in their native language early on, so they’re not missing out on that. Then, through strategic bilingual methodology of creating bridging between the two languages, opportunities to transfer knowledge between the two languages, they have a stronger basis for their ability to make connections between two languages.”

As an example, consider that a lot of scientific terminology comes from Latin. At Nuestro Mundo, the language being taught alongside English is Spanish, and Spanish is a Romance language, meaning it evolved from Latin. The result, students can more quickly understand scientific vocabulary and incorporate it properly into conversation and writing.

Residents of Madison may be familiar with MMSD offering two-way immersion education all the way from kindergarten to 12th grade, but that wasn’t always the case. Nuestro Mundo was the start of it all as a charter school that went through MMSD, rather than the UW system. It’s first home was as a school within a school in the Frank Allis Elementary building on Buckeye Road. It didn’t take long for the district to recognize the popularity of the education model, and now seven of its elementary schools, four of its middle schools, and each of the four high schools use dual language programs (of which the two-way immersion model is one).

As the district made its journey in developing successful language-acquisition programs, Nuestro Mundo took a little journey of its own. In 2012, the school moved out of the Frank Allis building to its own place in Monona. Then, in 2020, a referendum passed to fund the construction of a new school, Southside Elementary. This new school would effectively replace Frank Allis Elementary, so when construction was completed in 2023, the old building would be vacant. That same year, Nuestro Mundo found a new home in its old home at the Frank Allis building.

Being back home, so to speak, comes with the added bonus of regaining access to the extensive school garden available on premises. “We have a master gardener who comes 20 hours a week and works with our students,” says Principal Forehand. “Everything from preparing soil and planting to, when we come back in the fall, maintaining gardens, harvesting, and cooking. We can make tortillas and salsa all with ingredients coming from the school garden.”

Food and language are part of culture, and Principal Forehand and everyone at Nuestro Mundo see each student’s culture as part of their identity. “ESL, while it’s extremely important from a philosophical standpoint, it’s not allowing students to develop their identity as a speaker of a certain language,” says Principal Forehand. “I’m from Texas originally, so when I taught there, students would have two years in bilingual and then they had to leave. So we’re telling kids that your language and identity are things that need to be overcome so you can be successful in this country. Whereas with a dual language program, the message is you can strengthen and maintain and enrich your identity through your language and culture while simultaneously gaining language and skills in English that are necessary to be successful in this country.”

In case it wasn’t obvious, native English speakers benefit by being a part of the two-way immersion model as well. At Nuestro Mundo, these students come away with an advanced understanding of the Spanish language. It’s well documented that bilingual speakers get hired first and have higher salaries, but there are other advantages as well, like having a decreased risk of developing dementia. The benefits of having Nuestro Mundo as part of MMSD have already been realized and will surely extend far into Wisconsin’s future.

Nuestro Mundo Community School
4201 Buckeye Road, Madison, WI
(608) 204-1079
nmcs.madison.k12.wi.us