Intern Program

For more than ten years, Apoyemos has worked with Amity Institute to  bring native Spanish speaking interns to support our children and teachers in the classrooms.  Beginning with three interns at Ainsworth Elementary, Apoyemos has expanded to also provide interns at West Sylvan and Lincoln.  For 2023-24, we currently have three interns at Ainsworth and West Sylvan. For 2023/24, our goal is return to our pre-COVID intern numbers of four interns at Ainsworth, two at West Sylvan and one at Lincoln.

Our interns are all training to become teachers in their home country, and offer cultural exchange, classroom assistance, and  the native language skills that help our children with spelling, pronunciation and grammar and really embracing the culture and language.

Each intern lives with a host family for either 1/2 of the year, or a full year, September to June. Hosting an intern is a wonderful way to bring cultural exchange to your home, and reinforce language learning for the whole family. To find out about hosting an intern,  contact our Intern Coordinator, Mitzi Raaf, at 4hostfamilies@gmail.com.

Watch our 2013 video below to see and hear our teachers and interns at work, talking about the program beginnings and expansion over the years. And here directly from immersion students how 2022/23 interns, Maria and Carlos from Spain and El Salvador, helped them in class with improving their Spanish and cultural understanding.

Juanma being welcomed for the 2023/24 school year by his host family!

Tio de Nadal - a Catalan tradition, shared at West Sylvan Middle School. 

Tio de Nadal - a Catalan tradition, shared at West Sylvan Middle School.