The class requires that students speak only Spanish. If they break the rule, they are required to pay "el banco" a quarter for each offense. The money will contribute to buying them all shirts at the end of the course.

Geni Flores, the co-director alongside professor Vitelio Contreras, said the class shows teachers the importance of being fluent in a language. "As bilingual teachers, they need to learn to think and speak in Spanish only because we are role models for our students," said Flores. "We need to let the students know that it is important to gain fluency without reliance on other languages."

She said the main focus of this course is for students to be able to take the Prueba de Espanol competency test at the end of the week. A passing score on the state Spanish competency exam will certify them as bilingual teachers.

Valeria Madrid, a fourth-grade teacher at Hermosa Elementary in Artesia, said she already spends some of her time in the classroom speaking solely Spanish with immigrant students but it is odd for her to speak only Spanish all day.

"It just gives me the practice I need to get better," she said. Madrid's first language is Spanish but she said she lost some of it after an incident in the first grade where her teacher chastised her parents for speaking only Spanish with her at home.

Madrid, whose father spoke no English, said she was almost held back because she spoke less English than other students.

"Now, I tell the parents that it is important that they speak Spanish at home because I don't want my students to lose that," she said. "I can relate to those students."

Irma Acosta, a math teacher at Mountain View Middle School in Roswell, said she also is a native Spanish speaker who moved from Mexico when she was five.

She said she is re-learning Spanish because the dialect she is used to hearing and speaking can be academically incorrect.

She said she struggles with the immersion part of it but it makes it easier that everyone struggles and they struggle together.

"When they say immersion, they really mean you are immersed. It's not drowning but it is close," she said, laughing. "It helps that the teachers have put more quarters in than we have."