Roberto Germán [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Our Classroom. In this space, we talk about education, which is inclusive of, but not limited to, what happens in schools. Education is taking place whenever and wherever we are willing to learn. I am your host, Roberto Germán, and our classroom is officially in session. Anti-Racist Reading Revolution by Dr. Sonja Cherry-Paul provides K-8 educators with a comprehensive framework for anti-racist teaching. Learn how to create joy, community, and justice in your classroom through transformative reading experiences. Chapters in this book offer personal and insightful anecdotes, provide a clear and actionable guide for K-8 literacy educators, encourage critical reflection, and guide educators toward selecting and teaching with books that center the lived experiences of BIPOC students in an anti-racist classroom.
Roberto Germán [00:01:06]:
Reading helps us to dream, experience joy, engage in collective struggle, liberate our minds in love. Let us move forward to realize our vision of an anti-racist reading classroom rooted in love and liberation.
Roberto Germán [00:01:22]:
Welcome back to Our Classroom. Today I am joined by a former…
Roberto Germán [00:01:28]:
Colleague of mine who’s in Austin, Texas. Shout out to all my Austin folks!
Roberto Germán [00:01:33]:
Y’all know I got love for the ATX, and I have Gretchen Melo here with me today. She is the founder of El Puente Bilingüe, which is a curriculum for Spanish language learning and teaching, but with a Montessori twist. Hey, if y’all know about Montessori, you better know I love Montessori. I love Montessori. I love the approach, and I love the fact that Gretchen has blended Spanish language learning with Montessori. I think it’s needed. I think there’s a lot of value in that. And I’m curious to hear you talk a little bit more about how you landed there, and how’s it been going, and the potential that this curriculum for Spanish language learning and teaching has.
Roberto Germán [00:02:27]:
So, welcome, Gretchen.
Gretchen Melo [00:02:29]:
Thank you, Roberto. And it’s so good to see you. And as you were talking, I was just thinking about the whole story of how this began. And you actually have a role to play because… well, yes. Because when I did work with you, it was at the Montessori school and you hired me, so…
Roberto Germán [00:02:51]:
That’s right. That’s right.
Gretchen Melo [00:02:53]:
Yeah, that’s right.
Roberto Germán [00:02:56]:
So, I guess that leads me to a question that I did not consider. It’s… it’s… it’s not on my prep sheet at all. Do I get a percentage of your earnings for, for this curriculum based on the fact that I played such a crucial role in you landing at this place?
Gretchen Melo [00:03:17]:
Why don’t we set that question aside? We’ll discuss that later on.
Roberto Germán [00:03:23]:
Oh, well! Listen, let’s jump in. Let’s jump into the inspiration behind El Puente Bilingüe curriculum and how it differs from traditional Montessori language programs. I think folks need to hear this.
Gretchen Melo [00:03:40]:
Okay, great. Thank you. Um, you know, I’m a… I’m a bilingual person, um, cultural connections are really important to me, and I’ve… I just… I wanted that for other people. And when I started working at the Montessori school, I was an assistant guide in a lower elementary classroom.
Gretchen Melo [00:04:05]:
And what I noticed is that these kids, I was fascinated by how they were able to grasp concepts about English grammar and the English language that I didn’t think that children that young would tend to be able to grasp, let alone be interested in. And I thought, well, this is something that they could transfer into learning another language, into learning Spanish. Initially, the direction I went was to start with verbs, which might seem really advanced, but I just thought, well, these kids could probably learn how to conjugate a present tense verb. So, I just started with that, and I just started to fill in the blanks, because what I saw was that there was a void in the Spanish language curriculum that tends to be presented in a Montessori school. It seemed to me that they were doing a great job, that the curriculum in general does a great job with maybe giving, like the… that were bringing kids in with games and stories and things like that. And I think that’s wonderful. But I noticed that kids actually do want to learn about the structure of a language.
Gretchen Melo [00:05:38]:
And so I sought to fill that void of giving a little more structure to their learning of the Spanish language.
Roberto Germán [00:05:46]:
Yeah, and that’s awesome, because they need that structure. They need to be pushed. There should be an emphasis on learning more languages here in this country. There’s not enough of that. Can you explain how your curriculum adapts first language Montessori learning practices for second language acquisition, specifically in Spanish?
Gretchen Melo [00:06:10]:
Yes. So now, going back to how I mentioned that, I did notice that there was curriculum out there that they would use sometimes in Montessori schools. What I noticed was that they had three-part cards, sometimes in other curriculums. And so initially, when I started creating, I jumped to what I thought was needed, right. I went into the sentence analysis, the word analysis. I created a verb study specifically for Spanish because, in Montessori, they have what you call word studies. They’ll study how a word works, how the function of a certain grammar point.
Gretchen Melo [00:06:56]:
So I started there. It doesn’t only focus on grammar, though. The El Puente Bilingüe curriculum. What I also love to do is allow or foster a creative component to promote students’ investigative skills or to help them to do a little bit more inquiry and broaden their vocabulary on their own. So there’s what I call a mastery track component. We also have a sentence analysis component and a great works component, which I know a lot of Montessori schools love to use, where students, sort of after they’ve learned a certain amount of things, they then are invited to do what we call a great work. It could be a presentation, it could be a play, it could be a song, it could be a poster or whatever. They’re using their own creativity, a little bit more investigative approach so that they’re broadening their vocabulary and they’re building on what they’ve already learned.
Roberto Germán [00:08:24]:
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And it’s important to tap into their prior knowledge. And sometimes we underestimate how much our students know. And in this particular context, being in Austin, Texas, we know that there’s a lot of Spanish spoken all around, right. So, there are kids who, they might not even understand or realize how much they already know just by the nature of the communities that they live in, the schools that they attend, the families that they’re around, and how Austin is in general. I’m thinking about scaffolded lessons and mastery track activity options.
Roberto Germán [00:09:11]:
How does that work in terms of supporting students’ language development? How does El Puente Bilingüe make that happen?
Gretchen Melo [00:09:22]:
Yeah. So we start with basic greetings.
Roberto Germán [00:09:28]:
Because basic greetings or readings?
Gretchen Melo [00:09:32]:
Greetings. Greetings. So, hola, buenos días, ¿cómo estás?
Roberto Germán [00:09:36]:
¿Cómo estás?
Gretchen Melo [00:09:37]:
Right, because that’s exciting for them, right? It empowers them. And then we move to the colors and the numbers. And what’s fun about the numbers, this is something different than what El Puente Bilingüe does, is we focus on finding patterns in the numbers.
Roberto Germán [00:10:01]:
Can you give us an example?
Gretchen Melo [00:10:03]:
Yes. So when you look at uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, so you’re counting one to ten. Once you get to eleven through nineteen, once, doce, trece maybe doesn’t… doesn’t look or sound a whole lot like uno, dos, tres. Well, actually, doce and trece do, right. But you get into dieciséis, diecisiete.
Gretchen Melo [00:10:37]:
If we can get the students to realize what they’re really saying is “ten and six,” “ten and seven”…
Roberto Germán [00:10:42]:
Right.
Gretchen Melo [00:10:42]:
Right. And then that happens again throughout the rest of the numbers. You get to the twenties: veinte y uno, veinte y dos, “twenty and one,” “twenty and two.” So it’s a simple way to help them start identifying patterns in the language. Then later, we get into identifying gender in grammar. You know how we have masculine and feminine: el, la. They take that knowledge and apply it to their adjective endings, right? Once they start seeing that these components exist, they can carry that knowledge forward.
Gretchen Melo [00:11:28]:
Now, going back to—you wanted to know how it builds, right? So once we do the basics, like some nouns in five different categories—school, home, neighborhood, family—then we start applying these adjectives to those nouns, and then we bring it into the human body and identification of people. You know, mamá, papá—well, that’s from the family words—but like mujer, hombre, muchacha. And suddenly the students are seeing that they can start putting phrases together. Then comes sentence analysis, and this is where it gets really fun because we’ll throw in a verb that the students have never seen or heard, but they can start looking at it and say, “Hey, I know that’s a noun, I know that’s an adjective, I recognize these words, but I don’t recognize that. Now, what do I know about sentences? What do they always need? A subject and a predicate.”
Roberto Germán [00:12:49]:
A predicate.
Gretchen Melo [00:12:50]:
Yep. So then they… and these Montessori kids are amazing. All kids are amazing, right? But in the Montessori world, they really foster that whole language learning because there’s language acquisition, which is so beautiful and important, and there’s language learning. But we can combine the two. And with the mastery track activities and the great works activities, combining that with sentence analysis and the grammar, it brings that whole acquisition and language learning together because you can create a community of second language speakers, even if most of the community is actually second-language learners. You can still build that community and start using the language within your community.
Roberto Germán [00:13:41]:
Absolutely. Thanks for sharing. The curriculum is designed to be equivalent to a high school Spanish 1 class, spread over several years. How do you ensure that students build a strong foundation as lifelong language learners?
Gretchen Melo [00:14:00]:
Yeah, you know, and I’m going to check my notes because I really loved that question and I did write some things that I wanted to address. So just a moment. Oh, here we go. So, well, first of all, spreading it out over several years actually ensures that foundation. As I just mentioned, it creates a kind of realistic or natural language learning and acquisition setting because they’re gradually building the language within their community. In a Montessori community, maybe some of the listeners might not know, that in a Montessori community, they cover three years. These students are spending two or three years together.
Roberto Germán [00:14:56]:
Right, because it’s mixed-age levels, mixed-grade levels. So for those who are not familiar with Montessori, you’d have a lower elementary classroom with students in grades one, two, and three, and you’d have an upper elementary classroom with students in grades four, five, and six.
Gretchen Melo [00:15:16]:
Right. Right. And so what I do is I encourage the guides not to do more than, I would say, two lessons per week because…
Roberto Germán [00:15:31]:
Why is that?
Gretchen Melo [00:15:33]:
Yeah, because the lessons… it’s not just give the lesson and move on. There are other components to it. There’s the practice, there’s the mastery track, and sometimes students, we follow the child, they might need to sit there for a minute and really do their practice. Some students might need to jump to the mastery track, because the mastery track is also a differentiation tool. It differentiates for students who might need a little extra time, but it also differentiates for students who are ready to really jump ahead and broaden their scope. So…
Roberto Germán [00:16:15]:
So it’s designed to meet the students where they are, right?
Gretchen Melo [00:16:19]:
Yep, and to give them that time. So combined with the two elementary levels, I’ve got about 50 lessons combined. So if you were to think about it, I could roughly say 50 weeks, but I wouldn’t even do that because once you get to, say, the human body box, which has many, many words, that’s where students now have to do a lot of practice over several weeks of time.
Roberto Germán [00:17:10]:
Yeah, because sometimes there’s just a lesson, and then it’s like, now you’re going to need to really explore this vocabulary from the Montessori box and do a lot of practice work.
Gretchen Melo [00:17:27]:
So let’s actually talk about that practice work. How does El Puente Bilingüe integrate with other Montessori materials, such as laying the groundwork to provide a comprehensive language learning experience?
Gretchen Melo [00:17:47]:
So, you know how in Montessori, oftentimes when you go into a classroom, you’ll see a group of students sitting on the floor, they’ll have a rug out, and you might go over and see them with little cards on the floor or on the mat. It has to stay on the mat, and they’ll be learning and practicing at the same time. They’re developing their knowledge, they are broadening their knowledge. El Puente Bilingüe has the same kind of components. We’ve got cards that they use, sometimes for a flashcard purpose, sometimes for matching, sometimes for building phrases, sometimes for sentence analysis and verb studies. Once you get into the “who we are and what we do” set, all of these are… they’re using…
Gretchen Melo [00:18:24]:
What I’ve done is I’ve taken the skills they’ve acquired in Montessori with learning through broadening perspectives and everything with these materials, and I’ve transferred those skills into… oh, there’s another fun component too. So, the beautiful boxes are made by my very talented professional woodworker husband, who donated his time to me.
Roberto Germán [00:18:55]:
Shout out to Antonio!
Gretchen Melo [00:18:57]:
Right. Yes. Thank you. So, and within those boxes, the lid actually serves as a workboard. So you take the lid out and you lean it into these little holders, and you set your cards. It’s a beautiful process. And sometimes when we add beauty to a learning process, it makes it more meaningful, it makes it more fun, and it helps you to enjoy the process of learning more.
Roberto Germán [00:19:26]:
Did I answer your question?
Gretchen Melo [00:19:27]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I just wanted the folks to understand how it is that the curriculum integrates with the Montessori materials. Because I think for folks, my understanding is that what you’ve created is really geared towards that audience, geared towards the Montessori audience. So whether you’re a Montessori practitioner working in a school setting or maybe you’re homeschooling your kids and utilizing the Montessori approach, this is meant for that particular audience. Is that correct?
Gretchen Melo [00:20:07]:
It is, but there’s a little thing I’d love to add to that. As you were speaking, I was just thinking about how the main goal here is to empower the students to be lifelong language learners, spreading the lessons out and allowing them to solidify these skills. They’re going to take these skills of being able to analyze verbs out into their lifelong language journey. I know I do. Spanish is my second language. I’m analyzing verbs left and right. If there’s a new verb, I’m like, oh, I bet you that’s an irregular verb, and I know that because XYZ.
Gretchen Melo [00:20:51]:
But what I wanted to get back to, though, is I wanted to mention that the journey we’ve taken with El Puente Bilingüe was a very zigzag journey. At one point, I had to set aside the Montessori component and open myself up to creating something for everyone, not just Montessori. I did that during COVID. I was working at an IB school, and…
Roberto Germán [00:21:25]:
I ended up… Yeah, go ahead.
Gretchen Melo [00:21:29]:
Yeah, so I ended up… I was using Montessori in this IB school with these missions.
Roberto Germán [00:21:38]:
Yeah, Montessori and IB, they blend well. I mean, I worked in a school where the lower campuses were Montessori, and the upper campus, the high school, was IB, and the middle school was the bridge. So they do intersect well.
Gretchen Melo [00:21:55]:
And it was going along great, you know. And then all of a sudden, they’re like, “You’re going to stay home. COVID has arrived.”
Roberto Germán [00:22:03]:
Right.
Gretchen Melo [00:22:04]:
You know? Right. But sometimes something beautiful comes out of something not so great. One of the good things that I was able to create during that time was an online course that fostered students’ self-efficacy—you know, taking charge of their own language learning journey. I wanted to mention that because I do offer an online program. It’s not Montessori-specific, but it does challenge the student to do exploratory activities. There’s also a mastery track component in that online course as well. So that’s available for my non-Montessori audience, too.
Roberto Germán [00:23:04]:
Yeah.
Gretchen Melo [00:23:05]:
I think it’s important for folks to know. There are a lot of people who don’t know about Montessori, and they’re not necessarily going to go down that lane. So having another option, where you’ve taken these ideas and are offering resources for folks to work on Spanish language learning and teaching without the pressure of having to understand Montessori, is helpful. I even wonder if there might be adults interested in this course you’ve created. I have a particular friend of mine who’s trying to learn Spanish. He’s doing a program, and I’ve forgotten the name of it. But knowing what I know of you as a teacher and the type of materials you’ve created, I wonder if this might also be a good option for adult education.
Gretchen Melo [00:24:11]:
It very well could be. I actually created it for students aged twelve through ninety-nine, so…
Roberto Germán [00:24:19]:
Okay.
Gretchen Melo [00:24:20]:
Yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:24:21]:
Wonderful, wonderful. What are some of the unique challenges you’ve encountered in developing this Montessori-based language curriculum and materials? And how have you addressed them? I would imagine along the way there were some challenges or things that appeared great in your mind, but then the practicality didn’t translate as smoothly. So what are some of those challenges?
Gretchen Melo [00:25:00]:
Well, there have been a few. In the early days, when I first started creating the materials, I housed them in plastic bins—those little sewing organizational boxes—because at that point, years ago, my husband didn’t have his woodworking shop set up yet. So that was one challenge. Now, we’ve got these beautiful boxes, so that’s wonderful. Another challenge came up a couple of years ago. Even though other educational companies offer three-part cards, I didn’t have those initially because I was trying to fill a void with my own materials. But then teachers started messaging me, asking, “Don’t you have something for Children’s House?” which is for younger preschool-aged children up through kindergarten. At first, I didn’t think it was necessary because I thought it already existed. But then I realized it could be used as a differentiation tool, so I created an early Spanish skills set.
Gretchen Melo [00:26:03]:
This set addresses the same vocabulary as the elementary levels, but with a lighter touch. We’re not conjugating verbs or anything like that. We’ve got three-part cards, alphabet cards, and sounds. When learning Spanish as a native speaker, you look at letter blends, so I’ve included that. We touch on all the vocabulary from the elementary sets, but in a basic way. Students use three-part cards and can look at little picture books. There are more pictures in the early Montessori set than in the elementary sets, which are more focused on vocabulary and transferring Montessori grammar skills to second-language learning.
Roberto Germán [00:28:19]:
That’s awesome. I can definitely see the impact these materials could have on the learning experiences, particularly in Montessori environments. Thinking back to the time we spent at the school we worked at together, this would have been a great resource for their learning. But everything is a journey, right? It seems like our time at that school was critical for you in observing, collecting data, and later developing this curriculum with El Puente Bilingüe.
Gretchen Melo [00:29:21]:
Yes, definitely. I’m so grateful for that time. It really helped shape this journey. Shifting gears a little—if you had the opportunity to have lunch with anybody, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
Gretchen Melo [00:29:38]:
There are so many people I could choose. I think about spirituality and of course, I’d love to have lunch with my savior, Jesus, right?
Roberto Germán [00:29:48]:
Amen.
Gretchen Melo [00:29:50]:
Amen. But also… I don’t know, there are so many people. But I’d love to have lunch with my grandmother.
Roberto Germán [00:30:05]:
That’s not odd at all. I interviewed someone recently who mentioned wanting to have lunch with their father, who passed away eight years ago. I told her my father passed two and a half years ago, and I’d love to have that time with him again. So, no, it’s not odd at all.
Gretchen Melo [00:30:31]:
Thank you.
Roberto Germán [00:30:34]:
What is a message of encouragement you’d like to offer our audience?
Gretchen Melo [00:30:41]:
You know, I want to say that many times in my journey, I’ve felt moments of inadequacy. I would say every day there’s some point when I might feel self-doubt, but I think that we can all be bridges. We can all help one another make connections. We can connect with one another, but we can also help others build those connections. And in my case, I’m talking about El Puente Bilingüe, the bilingual bridge. Even if you’re listening and you’re not a Spanish speaker, maybe you know a few words, maybe you don’t know any, but you can still help your students build that bilingual bridge by learning Spanish with them.
Gretchen Melo [00:31:40]:
Currently, I’m so excited about this—I’m making a video lesson for every single one of those elementary lessons. Educators, all you need to do is play the video. You can print out the cards that come with the video, and you’re on your way. You can pause the video when you need it, and you can learn alongside your students. If you’re thinking, “Well, that all sounds great, but I don’t speak Spanish,” it’s okay. I’ll speak Spanish for you in the video, and I’m here to support you in that way.
Roberto Germán [00:32:29]:
That’s great, Gretchen. Kudos to you. I know how much work goes into creating video lessons and courses, but I also know how much they can benefit others. For those who want to learn more about you and El Puente Bilingüe, where can they follow you?
Gretchen Melo [00:33:01]:
They can start by visiting elpuentebilingue.org/montessori. Now, I don’t have the diaeresis over the “u” in bilingüe, it’s just elpuentebilingue. You can also find me on Facebook or LinkedIn. Once you get to elpuentebilingue.org/montessori, you’ll find lots of links, and you can even join a free webinar for more details.
Roberto Germán [00:33:55]:
Awesome. So folks, go to elpuentebilingue.org and connect with Gretchen. Whether you’re a Montessori educator, school leader, or homeschooling your kids using the Montessori approach, definitely check out El Puente Bilingüe. I can vouch for Gretchen’s work and the materials she’s created—they’re valuable and accessible.
Roberto Germán [00:34:48]:
Gretchen, I’m grateful to have you here. Grateful to reconnect and grateful to hear about how you’re bridging language gaps in the educational space. It’s much needed in society. One way we can connect more deeply is by learning another language and wrestling with the discomfort of acquiring and using that language. You’re doing great work.
Gretchen Melo [00:36:09]:
Thank you, Roberto. I really appreciate you, Lorena, and all the work you’re doing. I’m so thankful for the opportunity to share about El Puente Bilingüe today.
Roberto Germán [00:36:26]:
Thank you! Well, you know we’re here to support you. You’re welcome to be on the platform anytime. As always, your engagement in Our Classroom is greatly appreciated. Be sure to subscribe, rate the show, and write a review. Finally, for resources to help you understand the intersection of race, bias, education, and society, go to multiculturalclassroom.com. Peace and love from your host, Roberto Germán.
