NORWAY — A group of Spanish students in an English-language immersion program are touring the United States this month, starting with a week in the Oxford Hills.

About a dozen teenagers are working as volunteers at the Alan Day Community Garden to build a hoop greenhouse as a way to learn local farming practices and get first-hand English experience. The garden is at 26 Whitman St.

The school is run by Steve Day, a cousin of the garden’s namesake, and his wife, Clara Ruiz. Day said the students are city kids from Oviedo, a city of about 225,000 near Spain’s northern coast, and most have little to no experience in a garden.

Ruiz said she and Day were looking for an opportunity for the teens to learn English outside of a classroom and let them learn about American culture in the process. “We wanted to take the focus off the language and have them do something,” she said.

Day said many of the teens had been students at the school for as long as 10 years, but this was the first time they’ve been to America.

The students will be working in Norway for most of the week, with a day off Wednesday to attend Independence Day celebrations in Portland. After their work is finished in town, the group heads south to spend time in New York City and Cape Cod. At the end, they’ll return to the area for camping at Starlight Pastures in Paris.

When they arrived in Norway on Friday, the students were matched with local host families over the weekend. Katey Branch, one of the founders of the garden, said the students “saw a really wide range of experiences” over the weekend, from zip  lining to composting toilets.

Student Irene Mendivil, 16, said she stayed with a family in Otisfield who are involved with Seeds of Peace. She had dinner with campers there from Pakistan, Israel, Palestine and other countries. She said she loves the area, but is most excited about going to New York City.

Branch said she hopes the teens bring community gardening back to their home city. They’re working on a hoop house, a greenhouse made with a row of semicircular metal bars with a sheet of clear plastic over the top. When finished, it will be an outdoor classroom for students at Guy E. Rowe Elementary School.

On Monday morning, half the students were tilling up the ground and laying a base of corrugated cardboard while the rest were at the Roberts Farm Preserve, bending the metal bars that would become the greenhouse’s frame.

Day said they’d originally planned on visiting Boston this week, but with people leaving town for the holiday it was hard to find host families. Day, who has been living in Spain for years, chose to come to Norway, and the community garden, for the family connection.

It was hot Monday and the work was hard, but Day said it was good for his students to be speaking English, communicating with their teachers and with garden staff, instead of sitting inside learning English grammar.

“It’s good for the community,” Day said. “It’s good for them.”

treaves@sunjournal.com

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