“Tuning into the needs of the public is a lot like following the child.”

Meet Gretchen Melo, M.Ed, founder of El Puente Bilingüe

What is your professional background? In my adult life I have had 2 career paths so far – customer service and education. Every role I have filled has involved bilingualism in some way. Something interesting is that prior to going into customer service in my early 20s, I was a teacher. While living in Mexico after college, I taught ESL for approximately 2 years. I absolutely loved it, but I didn’t take myself seriously as a “real” teacher at that time, and spent the next 14 years in customer service before realizing that bilingual education had been calling my name.

What led you to Montessori? My own journey to Montessori is entwined with that of my son’s. It wasn’t until my son (now a senior in high school) was about to enter kindergarten that I became a bilingual classroom teacher. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was the beginning of my Montessori story. I am a very intuitive person, and my husband and I were passionate about our son’s academia and his Spanish skills. My husband is from Mexico and our son’s first language was Spanish. We enrolled our son in a public double immersion school. While his language skills continued to develop, he was generally unhappy with his learning environment. He would chase me down the hall crying each morning, and he struggled with the expectations and demands when it came to his learning. We were called into meetings quite frequently, and the teacher expressed concern over his ability to understand mathematical concepts as well as his lack of focus and effort during reading and writing. I found that he could easily grasp new concepts and skills at home, and the difference was that we would talk about things with him and allow him to express his own ideas, applying his ideas and newly learned skills in ways that were interesting
to him.

In the end, we decided I would homeschool him. I put my classroom teaching journey on hold, and over the next 3 years I “followed the child.” I never once purchased a full, formal curriculum. I tuned into what my son needed and what he was ready for, and went from there. Sometimes homeschooling looked like a long conversation, and other times it had the appearance of something more conventional. Many times it involved him doing projects. When he expressed a strong desire to return to some kind of school environment, we chose a Montessori school. I am happy to say that all those years of me “following the child” paid off, because when he took his 5th grade state tests that first year, he was in the 98th percentile in math, and was reading at an 8th grade level. He was also an accomplished creative writer with an extensive vocabulary.

What led you to marry Spanish language learning with Montessori? My first year at that Montessori school, I was a lower elementary guide, and I felt an instant connection to the Montessori philosophy and methodology. Observing the students and allowing them to take the lead in their learning journey was something I had already been doing. As lifelong language learners, my family and I were so glad that the campus was in the process of forming a Spanish language program. The lead guide in my assigned classroom acquired some fantastic Spanish vocabulary sets with 3-part nomenclature cards, which was so great because students could use the Montessori skills they were familiar with to help them expand their linguistic repertoire. However, what I found was that there was a lack of Spanish language
learning materials when it came to things like sentence structure, verb conjugations, or most any grammar feature, really. As a lifelong language learner, I want to say that language learning and language acquisition complement one another beautifully, and it is quite empowering for a language learner to understand the structure of that language.

As an assistant guide, I marveled daily at these lower elementary students’ knowledge of English grammar, and was really moved by the beautiful way the Montessori language learning and acquisition materials led the students to acquire a complete understanding of the building blocks of English. I was astounded that nothing like that existed for a second language learner. There simply were no world language Montessori materials that went beyond vocabulary development. So, I began making them myself.

What was the first material that you created? The first Montessori materials I made were subject pronouns and verb conjugation cards, because I know from personal experience that without a working knowledge of verbs, communication can only go so far. I wanted to fill in the void with Montessori curricula when it came to teaching and learning about the workings of the Spanish language. The lead guide asked me to teach the students Spanish, and I went about this by speaking to them in Spanish during transition periods or during recess, and I began leading small reading clubs and offering grammar lessons using the materials I’d made. Students would work with my materials as well as the 3-part cards we had, and all-in-all it made for a great learning experience, which resulted in me being hired as the upper elementary Spanish teacher the following year.

I began to develop a curriculum, adding to my existing materials and improving things as I went along. The combination of methods and materials proved to be effective and enjoyable. Parents would stop me at dismissal to tell me how much Spanish their students were learning, and I received positive feedback from colleagues.

While lack of funds prevented me from continuing the Spanish program in that school, I knew that something important had been born from it all. Over the next 5 years I developed the materials into a full scale, elementary Montessori curriculum for Spanish language learners, and El Puente Bilingüe, LLC came into existence.

What are some things that you have learned as a business owner? I have found that being a business owner calls upon some Montessori skills! Tuning into the needs of the public is a lot like following the child. As an example, several schools inquired about whether my curriculum was suitable for Pre-K and K students, and I saw that it would be helpful to have materials that could support younger learners as well as elementary students who may need more differentiation than what my existing curriculum already offered. So, I created the Early Spanish Skills collection, which is aligned with the other materials.

What is a product or publication that you’re most excited about right now? Montessori materials can be a bit pricey, and since I wanted schools to be able to access our materials without breaking their budgets, we designed what we call the ECO Option. It has all the same content as the Deluxe line, but the boxes are more lightweight and the learning cards are available as digital downloads, which cuts down on shipping and printing costs. It also gives schools the freedom to choose the paper that fits their budget. Also, recently I started a project that supports all world language programs that embrace an inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning. It involves the use of different types of prompts and supporting students in generating their own questions to research. This further develops the Mastery Track component that exists within my Spanish curriculum, where students are called upon to apply new skills and vocabulary to activities and projects that they create.

What is next for El Puente Bilingüe? I am still trying to get the word out that we exist, and I will keep working on raising that awareness. As far as the curriculum, I have lots of plans! I want to add more original stories to my curriculum, as well as a Spanish 2 level for older students.

What else would you like to add? We are a small family operation right now, but I have big dreams for El Puente Bilingüe. I see El Puente Bilingüe making a big impact on language learning and acquisition, and I may be open to possible partnerships down the road that would allow our curriculum to reach more students. Ultimately, as the name implies, the mission behind El Puente Bilingüe is to promote
bilingualism and help to build bridges between communities and cultures. For a general overview of our Montessori Spanish language learning curriculum, visit https://elpuentebilingue.org/montessori.
To check out our blog site, go to www.elpuentebilingue.com. For access to our products, head over to http://shop.elpuentebilingue.com.