• Academic: Our students, whether native speakers of English or Spanish, achieve high levels of success in both languages.
  • The Multiple Benefits of Dual Language
  • The Astounding Effectiveness of Dual Language for All
• Cognitive: Bilingual students perform better on tasks that call for creative thinking, pattern recognition, and problem-solving. Bilingual students also have greater linguistic awareness and a more complex understanding of their native language.
  • Being Bilingual May Boost Your Brain Power
  • Juggling Languages can Build Better Brains
  • The Advantages of Being Bilingual
• Socio-Cultural: Proficiency in two languages also permits students to broaden their horizons by engaging with folk tales, songs, idioms, expressions, historical documents and other primary sources without the mediation of translation. Because our students are bilingual, they deepen their understanding of the world by communicating with people from other cultural groups.
  
• Economic: There is an increasing demand for bilingual employees. By the time Hurley’s students enter the workforce, this will be even more important.
  • Why it pays to be bilingual
  • Biliteracy for a Global Society

By 5th grade, students who have studied at the Hurley since kindergarten can read, write and speak both Spanish and English with a high level of proficiency. Unlike traditional elementary school language programs that expose children to a foreign language for 40 minutes once a week, the Hurley School immerses its students daily in a stimulating bilingual and multicultural environment. Because Hurley students hear and read Spanish as often as English, they acquire a second language in much the same way that they learned their first.

Academic excellence goes hand in hand with language acquisition at the Hurley. All our teachers have extensive training in implementing a dual-language program as integral part of an academically rigorous education. As a result, the Hurley’s tested dual-language approach graduates well-educated students who are not only bilingual but also biliterate.