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The need for people to communicate and survive before Columbus set foot on land in Aguada.
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Spanish colonists and our first residents, use of interpreters to understand each other.
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1898-1900 Dr. John Eaton, Former Commissioner of Education of the United States and his assistant Dr. Victor Clark established that teachers must learn English. They will have priority over the monolingual teachers.
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1900-1902 educational policy was to retain the Spanish and acquire English: Spanish in the elementary grades and English as a special subject. In high school all subjects would be in English and Spanish is taught as a special subject. Emphasis in American culture.
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1902-1904 was increased use of English in schools with the idea of turning it into official language of Puerto Rico schools.
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1905-1913 Spanish is suppressed. English is used as medium of instruction in all grades of the school system.
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In the school year 1909-1910, Grant Dexter, Commissioner of the time indicates that the number of Puerto Rican teachers licensed to teach English to be established English as the base language in all schools.
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It introduced the use of Spanish in first grade for some courses such as: hygiene, health and reading.
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A proposal was presented to make the use of spanish as the main teaching tool.
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1916-1934 Establish spanish as a learning language from 1st to 4th grade. From 5th to twelve grades half of the classes in english and the other half in spanish.
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U.S. citizenship is granted to Puerto Ricans.
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1921-1930 The Comissioner of Instruction Juan B. Huyke emphasized on the use of English inside and outside the classroom to both students and teachers.
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Dr. José Padín presented the use of English as foreign language for educational purposes and use of Spanish as tool for instruction. English was taught as second language.
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In 1936 new Commissioner José M. Gallardo tried to implement a bilingual program unsuccessfully because people thought that using more English was going to lead to assimilation and not using it meant to being "Anti-American".
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Spanish remains at the 6th grade, english as another course.
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It was taught in Spanish until 9th grade.
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1949-1950 Dr. Mariano Villarongo established the use of Spanish at all school levels and English as mandatory course. (This policy is currently being implemented in most of the schools in PR)
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U.S. sign a Law for Bilingual Education or Title VII
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1972-1976 Bilingual Projects are implemented in Padre Rufo School and Papa Juan XXIII School.
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Bilingual Education Program will be part of the English Department.
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1989-1992 Started the Project called "SUCCES" (Bilingual Education Transitional Computer Project) and "CEMI" with the purpose to form direct relation with the needs in linguistic limitations.
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Bilingual Education Programs become autonomous.
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The Governor was Pedro Roselló and he declared English and Spanish official languages of Puerto Rico. The Bilingual Citizen Projects began.
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Actually the last Bilingual Education Project for the 21st Century School. BEC- 21 for Elementary Public Schools and ES-21 for Middle Schools.