Emporia Spanish Speakers will be offering again Spanish classes to the community starting in February as they also start planning how to expand their services across Kansas to show the importance of creating a bilingual community.
For the last five years, Emporia Spanish Speakers has strived to motivate English speakers to learn Spanish to become Emporia in a bilingual city in order to integrate the Hispanic community and break barrier languages.
Founder of Emporia Spanish Speakers and Director of Visit Emporia LeLan Dains says that he is surprised about how Emporia Spanish Speakers evolved from a social club where the intent was personal at first as Dains was trying to reconnect with the Spanish language, to now being in the steps of growing to become Kansas Spanish Speakers and for instance try to expand to other communities in the state.
Dains says that the reason the organization has been successful in motivating the community to learn Spanish is that they implement an immersive experience in the classes where they combine Hispanic culture and language.
For the efforts of trying to make Emporia a bilingual city Emporia Spanish Speakers recently become part of the Rural Welcoming Program grant partnership by Welcoming America where they will take a new direction to ensure an inclusive community by breaking the barrier language from different approaches.
The language teaching will still be the focus of Emporia Spanish Speakers and for this year the registration is already open for two classes of the Los Puentes Youth Program one for kindergartners to 2nd graders, and another for 3rd-5th graders. Classes will start on Feb. 28th at Emporia Art Center located at 815 Commercial St and will culminate the week of the Cinco de Mayo celebration.
The Se Habla Español classes for adults do not have a start date yet but the focus this year is on teaching Spanish to workers in emergency services so they can assist the Hispanic community without having a barrier language.
For more information about the Spanish language programs of Emporia Spanish Speakers visit https://www.emporiaspanishspeakers.com/
