Sunnyside Intermediate multilingual students publish a book

LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - Sunnyside Intermediate sixth graders in the multilingual program put together a special project as fifth graders last year, and now that project has been officially published through the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.

The Sunnyside multilingual students created a digital video book titled “Guess the Endangered Animal.” It highlights the 160 species in Indiana that are endangered. The book will go in the Indiana DNR Division of Fish & Wildlife Newsletter.

By creating these videos, students are showing the work they’ve been putting in to learn a new language.

Out of the 75 students that worked on this project, each one of them has a different first language other than English. Many of them speak Spanish, Haitian-Creole, and French.

Sunnyside fifth and sixth grade multilingual teachers Eliza Talamentes and Kaleigh Hesher are teaching many of these students without speaking the same language. Each student is at a different level, but they are putting in extra work to read, write, and speak English all while learning alongside English-speaking children.

Talamantes and Hesher want these students to be proud of how much they are overcoming every single day.

“Well, we really try to build them up and say that ‘Your culture and your language that you bring with you to the school is really valuable and it’s a really important part of your identity. And that English can also add to that and open more opportunities for you.’ And we just want them to see the potential that we see in them,” said Talamantes.

“Our multilingual students are capable of great things and we know that, but this is an opportunity for other people in the community to see what they are capable of,” said Hesher.

For those students, this is actually how they’re finding out that their book has been published! Congrats to all of you for the hard work you’re putting in at school.

If you at home would like to “read” their book, you can click here.