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8A Daily News – Friday, January 13, 2012 Education in Tehama County KEEP ON LEARNING Mercy High's annual 300 Club raffle Courtesy photo Mercy High students Steven Rodriguez, Francesca Aguilar, Juan Saucedo, and Caitlin Landaker anticipate presenting the 300 Club raffle winner their prize. Special to the DN Mercy High School announces the sale of its annual 300 Club Raffle tickets now through Feb. 3. This raffle is a Mercy tradition dating back more than 20 years, and is one of the school's largest fundraising opportunities. Only 300 tickets will be sold so the odds can't be beat. Tickets sell for $100 each. Groups of people are wel- Courtesy photo Berrendos SERRF student Laynee Dennis enjoys having tea and cookies with her grandmother. Grandparents Matter at Berrendos SERRF, which continues to find ways to promote the You Matter philosophy by holding a Grandparents Matter Tea. SERRF students created a welcoming environment, decorated tables with hand made paper flowers and recycled art vases, served tea and beautifully decorated home made cookies. SERRF students were excited to celebrate and spend time with the grandparents in our community. Mercy High School Announces Fall Honor Roll Principal's Honor Roll (4.0 and above) Jennifer Gentry, Maggie Keller, Daniel Sandoval, Isaac Williams, Anna Curry, Jaydan Chi, Emyleigh Nel- son, Esteban Rodriguez, Teresa Yu, Kayce Kemp, Francesca Aguilar, Mahalee Gaumer, Julia Misslin, Vincent Chen, William Gentry, Christopher Gray, Shyanne Riberal-Norton, Gabriel Sartori. "A" Honor Roll ( 3.5-3.99) Veronica Ulrich, Jor- dan Stasinowsky, Jessica Li, Lucy Ma, Madison Coelho, Jun Ming Zhu, Ella Fleet, Christopher Met- calf, Giancarlo Nandino, Francesco Addonizio, Marissa Starman. "B" Honor Roll (3.0-3.49) Logan Baer, Samantha Mondragon, Christopher Bartlett, Leon Liu, Guil- herme Ferreira, Keith Zheng, Kevin Chen, Juan Ros- ales, Gina Rae Garibaldi, Mariah Kingwell, Leah Li, Jose Rosales, Nino Moder, Irlanda Hernandez, Roberto Ayala, Xin (Hailey) Gao, Breana Kemp, Estefany Weeks, Sarah Williams, Yeanette Rodriguez. Spanish unlocks doors to other languages in Cal State program LOS ANGELES (MCT) —Priscil- la Castro grew up enthralled with French culture despite understanding few words of the movies and music in which she delighted. Now Castro's facility with Spanish, which her family spoke at home, is serving as an unlikely bridge to mas- tering le Francais in a unique Cal State Long Beach program designed to exploit Spanish speakers' existing lan- guage skills. "I'm not 100 percent fluent, but I can hold a conversation," said Castro, 21, a journalism major. "A lot of things in Spanish are very similar, although because I learned Spanish at home, I didn't know a lot of the grammatical rules. So learning French is actually helping me to improve my Spanish grammar." The French for Hispanophones program was developed more than five years ago but recently surged in popu- larity at the Long Beach campus, where more than 30 percent of stu- dents are Latino. About 80 students were enrolled this fall in the French program, which has been such a success that a course in Italian for Spanish speakers was added this year. The university may double the number of class sections for J. E. C. JIM ENGLAND CONCRETE & CONSTRUCTION Residential & Commercial 530-529-4495 945-8295 LIC. #682190 Tues.-Fri. 10am-5pm Sat. 10am-2pm Closed Sun. & Mon. Ralph's Tax Service has moved to a new location at 855 Walnut St. Ste 2 Ralph welcomes aboard as an associate ~ Daniele Jackson se habla espanol See us for all of your Income Tax, Bookkeeping, Payroll and Financial Service needs. each course next fall because of the demand, officials said. The program has attracted the inter- est of linguistics educators from around the nation, including the Air Force Academy, which last year estab- lished a Portuguese course for Spanish speakers that is modeled on the Long Beach initiative. "We realized from our own educa- tional experiences that this kind of for- eign language learning was a huge bonus, but what had never happened before was a strategic way of imple- menting courses that would be suc- cessful," said Clorinda Donato, a pro- fessor of French and Italian at Long Beach and one of the program's cre- ators. "It's a highly innovative program, especially for the United States, where getting people to learn a language other than English is the first chal- lenge, and teaching essentially a third language is an even greater accom- plishment," said Rosemary Feal, exec- utive director of the Modern Language Assn. "Research shows that once some- one has learned a language other than their native tongue, it becomes increas- ingly easier to learn a third, fourth or fifth language," Feal said. "Students BOOK BARN 619 Oak St., Red Bluff (530) 528-Book 2665 doing this program will be uniquely advantaged if they want to go even fur- ther." Unlike traditional language pro- grams that focus on the grammar and vocabulary of a single language, stu- dents in the French and Italian pro- grams are taught to use similarities in their native language to better compre- hend the new one. The approach is especially effective with French, Spanish, Italian and other Romance languages. For example, the French verbs for "to know," connaître and savoir, are similar in structure to the same verbs in Spanish, conocer and saber. Students in the Long Beach programs typically acquire skills in a single semester that would take a year in traditional programs, Donato said. Students said they welcomed the accelerated pace. "The masculine and feminine struc- ture is similar, and that all came pretty easily," said Jonathan Beaty, 22, a stu- dent of French who is fluent in Span- ish. "The teacher doesn't have to spend time on a lot of grammatical structures and can focus on other things." In another classroom, students were conversing in Italian and per- forming skits that would count toward their grades. CUSTOM WE HAVE MOVED TO 333 S. Main St. Suite H Refurbished HP Dual Core Laptop $ 3600n Color Laser Printer $ 225 200 We carry Copy & Printer Supplies 20% off with this ad Labor, Parts & Accessories 530-690-3331 Your tax experts 32 Years Plus Experience "Enrolled to practice before the IRS" Open Year-Round New Clients Welcome www.lassentax.com Enrolled Agents: Rose Hablitzel, EA Rex Cerro, EA (530) 527-8225 208 Elm St., Red Bluff All major Credit Cards accepted Courtesy photo Maggie Keller, of Mercy High School, was named the Red Bluff Rotary student of the month recently. Pictured, from left, are Roy Gould, Helen Arbini, Keller, Candy Keller and Jeff Keller. come to buy in together and split the prize. First Prize is $5,000 cash, Second Prize is $2,500 cash, and Third Prize is an Apple iPad 2. As an added bonus, if we are able to sell all 300 of the tickets, the first prize will double to $10,000. We can use the help of our friends in the communi- ty to meet our goal. For tickets call the school at 527- 8313 or contact your favorite Mercy student. Keller named Student of the Month