LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) - It had been eight years since sisters Erika Rocha and Dulce Perez lived together.
Being five years older, Rocha had finished college and taught four years in their hometown of Heroica Matamoros, Mexico. She decided to move to Louisiana with her new husband in 2012.
Younger sister Perez was still in school when Rocha moved here. But it wouldn’t be long before she followed in her footsteps, first as a teacher and then to Louisiana.
Now they’re both at the same school, far away from the hometown where they launched their teaching careers. They work together as Spanish immersion teachers at Alice Boucher Elementary in Lafayette.
Rocha, 33, started in the Lafayette Parish School System seven years ago as an English as a Second Language assistant at Ridge Elementary in Duson. Then taught first and second grade in English at Carencro Heights Elementary for three years.
Once she moved in to Lafayette’s Spanish immersion program two years ago, she saw an opportunity for her sister, who was teaching in Mexico. Perez applied to be a Louisiana World Languages teacher, which allows her to live and work here for up to three years.
“I thought, ’How nice to share a new culture,’ and I love my occupation,” Perez said in Spanish.
This being her first year in the U.S., she’s less comfortable speaking English than her older sister. She is living in Lafayette with her sister and family, enjoying time with her 4-year-old niece, Alynna, while teaching first-grade Spanish immersion at Alice Boucher.
“Teaching little kids for me is very exciting and gratifying to see the changes they make, like learning to read,” Perez said.
Lafayette Parish has nearly 200 students taking Spanish immersion from pre-K to 10th grade. Two elementary schools offer the program as magnet academies for kids to enter when they start school.
Rocha and Perez are among 11 Spanish immersion teachers at Alice Boucher. Perez joined the staff this year after teaching seven years in Mexico.
The sisters ride to and from work together, allowing them to catch up on the good and bad of the day.
“We don’t have time to talk during the day so afterward we share,” Rocha said. “It’s good talking as sisters and as teachers, because we support each other.”
It’s not surprising that they’re teachers. They come from a family of educators. Their dad and younger brother still teach in their hometown on the Mexican border. Now they have the unique experience of working and living together in a new place.
MAKING A NEW HOME
The siblings learned English at school and through traveling to Texas over the years. It was one such trip where Rocha met her future husband Mauricio, who is from the border town Brownsville, Texas. They dated long distance for five years and decided to marry and move to Louisiana for him to work in the oil field.
“I had been exposed to the English language but never practiced it,” Rocha said. “When we come to Louisiana, it was not the same (as learning in school).”
So she got to work practicing the language, taking advantage of local resources like the adult education English as a Second Language program at South Louisiana Community College and Volunteer Instructors Teaching Adults.
She worked with them for six months to become fluent in English, which gave her insight into how her future students would feel.
Rocha teaches fourth-grade math, science, social studies and Spanish language arts completely in Spanish for 40% of each school day.
“They’re speaking Spanish, and I’m here to support them,” Rocha said about her students. “What I’m doing is just enriching their vocabulary, teaching different strategies and supporting their knowledge.”
It can be challenging for her native English-speaking students, just like it was for her when she moved here.
“It was like immersion for us teachers,” Rocha said. “It helped me know how they feel.”
Rocha said learning in a second language makes students better listeners. They have to pay attention to grasp the meaning of words in a language they aren’t as accustomed to hearing.
“The brain is all the time exercising,” Rocha said. “They come to be better problem-solvers.”
Teaching Spanish as a second language also impacts how she and Perez teach. They speak slower and are more conscious of their grammar and using age-appropriate vocabulary.
“Every day is a challenge for everyone,” Perez said, referring to both teachers and students.
‘NOT EASY, BUT WORTH IT’
While it isn’t easy, she loves the experiences she’s gaining here, she said. Perez called her job in Lafayette both marvelous and a challenge, but one that’s worth it.
“It provides them a better future,” Perez said in Spanish. “At one time they are undertaking something very difficult and making connections in their mind. It’s a cerebral exercise.”
One of the challenges for both sisters at first was classroom management, because their past experience was in a different environment.
“The education system here is very different than the way it is (in Mexico),” Rocha said. “But when you are a good teacher, you can be a good teacher everywhere.”
The hours and schedules are different. Students usually walk to school in Matamoros, and they have to bring their own food. The materials available are different, too,
Perez explained that teaching in the U.S. is more visual and digital. In Mexico, it was more written because her classroom didn’t have the same technology she has here.
“We wish to have this in our room,” Rocha added, pointing to the smartboard in her classroom at Alice Boucher.
The sisters have found a lot of support in Acadiana, especially with their Spanish immersion parents.
“The community between Spanish teachers, parents and students is great,” Rocha said. “We’re working as a team. We are always working forward for the kids.”
Perez loves the festivals in her temporary home and everything connected to culture and nature, which Acadiana has in abundance.
Rocha and her husband have made Lafayette their home. She loves that there is always an event to enjoy or something to do, and she can do it with her family.
“I’m very thankful for Louisiana. It opened opportunities for us,” Rocha said. “Lafayette is a really good city to grow a family. I feel like I am in family here.”
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