Lawrence North High School piloted an internship program last year that gives Spanish immersion students hands-on work experience using their language skills. The program proved successful and has not only returned for a second year, but the number of participating students has increased.
Carolyn Gassmann Moen is the world languages department chair and Spanish immersion teacher at Lawrence North. She said she designed the program for the 2023-24 school year as a capstone experience for students who have gone through the Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township’s Spanish immersion program, which starts at the elementary level.
“The goal of the (immersion) program is that they become fully bilingual by the time they graduate,” Moen said. “This (internship class) is for seniors in the program who have done 12 years of immersion — native Spanish speakers, native English speakers, a mix of kids. And the goal of it is to get them out into our community using the Spanish that they learned through their time in the program to really serve the community that they grew up in.”
Moen said that in the first year, 20 students used their Spanish skills through unpaid internships in various locations. Some worked at MSDLT schools, helping in classrooms or working in the front offices.
“I had other kids that went to a health care clinic and did a lot of translating for patients,” she said. “I had other kids — one of them went to an engineering firm. He went to American Structurepoint and he was recognized by them as a really strong intern and he was able to be a finalist for the National American Structurepoint engineering scholarship.”
Another student interned with the Lawrence mayor’s office, she said, and helped translate documents and provide Spanish language services during Winterfest and the famers market. A student who interned in the front office of Sunnyside Elementary School was offered a paid job.
“They wanted us to move around his schedule so he could work full days with them, because he was doing such a great job,” she said. “It was really, really successful in our first year.”
Moen said the intern program has about 30 students this year and she’s been hard at work placing them at businesses throughout the community. She said there’s demand for workers with Spanish language skills.
“These companies, when I reach out to them, a lot of them respond back within the next hour, ‘Absolutely, we would love to have some of your students,’” she said. “It’s really cool to see how excited they are to have Spanish speakers in their work environment.”
Students in the program work as interns for about two hours every other day, depending on their schedule. Moen said that before they head out to their assigned workplaces, they spend about a month in the classroom learning how to be a valuable worker.
“We started the year with doing some personality tests, but also writing their personal mission statement — what is their mission as a future employee,” she said. “So, getting them to recognize who they are (and) then also see themselves as professionals before they go out to do their jobs.”
In December, the semester-long class ends with students drafting a resume, which can be used to apply for scholarships, colleges or jobs.
Moen said it’s great to see her students get excited about using their skills in a field of interest and to see how the experience boosts their confidence.
“Obviously, they’ve studied Spanish for all these years, but a lot of them just don’t feel like they know Spanish,” she said. “Now, they’re in a job setting where they have to use it and they came back to me a week or two after starting their internship last year, (and said) ‘Oh, my gosh, I know so much more Spanish than I thought I did,’ I’m like, ‘See, I told you you did.’ So, it’s gratifying as a teacher to be like, ‘You finally have the confidence that we’ve wanted you to have for the last however many years. And you’ve got it; you can do it.’”
The intern program’s success means it most likely will continue beyond the 2024-25 school year. Moen said the goal is to have all seniors who have gone through the district’s Spanish immersion program take the intern class.
Businesses interested in hosting a Spanish-language immersion intern from the program can contact Moen at [email protected].
