North Carolina: Spanish spoken here: Parents lining up for language immersion child-care programs

[Harold Schiffman]

Spanish spoken here Parents lining up for language immersion
child-care programs



By Remy Scalza, Correspondent

CHAPEL HILL -- It's playtime at Tiny Steps daycare, and 1-year-old
Maya Brooke is learning her animals. Lying on her back, she stares at
a toy overhead where Tweety, Bugs and Daffy twirl round and round. Her
teacher points, pronouncing the animal names slowly. "Pajarito.
Conejo. Pato," she says, listing the animals in Spanish while Maya
looks on.  Tiny Steps, or Pasitos in Spanish, is one of a growing
number of Spanish-immersion day cares in the Triangle. With names like
Spanish for Fun and Mi Escuelita (My Little School), these centers
work just like normal day cares except Spanish is the only language
you'll hear inside.

And while English-only laws are sprouting up across the country,
Triangle parents -- white, black and Hispanic -- are lining up to
enroll their kids in these Spanish-language programs.  "We're
basically full all the time, with a big waiting list," said Adriana
Martinez, owner of the Spanish for Fun Academy in Chapel Hill.
Martinez's school has 79 children, with another 80 waiting for a spot
to open.  "It's a year-long wait to get in," she said. "We're looking
to expand but can't find the space."

Dramatic growth in the Hispanic community has fueled a sudden interest
in Spanish for the pre-kindergarten crowd. North Carolina's Hispanic
population now stands at about 600,000, and nearly 10 percent of the
state's population now speaks a foreign language at home. With Spanish
increasingly important in the workplace, classroom and community, many
parents are eager to give their children a head start on the new
language.  "There's a growing awareness in our community that being
bilingual is an asset," said Linda Chappel, a vice president at Child
Care Services Association, a Triangle nonprofit that helps parents
find and pay for day care.

Last year, 42 percent of all families who got referrals from Chappel's
Orange County office said a bilingual staff was an important criterion
in their choice of a day care. "A lot of families want their child to
have that advantage, the advantage of being bilingual," Chappel said.

In Orange, Durham and Wake counties, more than 100 providers offer
Spanish day-care programs, according to data from the Child Care
Services Association. Many of these are bilingual schools, with some
instruction in Spanish and some in English. But growing numbers are
true immersion programs, where everything from story time to arts and
crafts is entirely in Spanish.

And enrollment -- for the most part -- is made up of children who
don't speak Spanish at home.

At the Spanish for Fun Academy, located within walking distance of UNC
Hospitals, 85 percent of the children are from a non-Hispanic
background, said owner Martinez. "A lot of our parents work in the
hospitals," she said. "They have a lot of contact with people who
don't speak English [and] think it's useful for their children to
learn Spanish."

Carol Brooke, mother of Maya, knows firsthand how valuable Spanish can
be in the Triangle. Brooke is a lawyer at the North Carolina Justice
Center in Raleigh, a nonprofit legal service that provides support for
immigrants and other groups in need.

"I work with migrant farm workers, and all of my clients speak
Spanish," Brooke said. "I know how important it's going to be for
[Maya] to speak Spanish in her lifetime."

Maya started at Tiny Steps when she was 4 months old. Five days a
week, from early morning drop-off to pickup around 5 p.m., she gets a
steady stream of Spanish from her teachers, all of whom are native
speakers.

So far, though, Maya hasn't had much chance to show off her new skills.

"She just says a few words," her mom explained, "all in English."

Today Maya is bundled up in a heavy jumper and boots, crawling around
the center's fenced-in outdoor play area. When she starts fidgeting
with the zipper, her teacher -- a 32-year-old immigrant from Mexico
named Mahli -- gives her a stern warning in Spanish.

"!No te quites el sueter!" she said. ("Don't you take off that
sweater!") Maya's hands fall to her sides.

"She understands Spanish very well," Mahli said. "I'll tell her to do
something, and she knows what to do."

Young children have an extraordinary capacity to absorb and understand
languages, explains Kateri Carver-Akers, head of The Language Center,
a Chapel Hill immersion school for 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds.

"Children under the age of 10 learn languages very easily," she said.
"Zero to 6 is the strongest [time]. Basically they learn it with no
effort at all."

Carver-Akers' school has 24 students in its Spanish-immersion program.
The benefits of studying Spanish at an early age go well beyond
language skills, she says: "Statistically, children have more flexible
cognitive abilities when they are bilingual. You get better SAT
scores. You get a better job."

These benefits don't necessarily come cheap, however. A full-day
program at The Language Center costs around $1,100 a month, about the
same price as other immersion courses in the area. Still,
Carver-Akers' says the cost is no higher than at a lot of
English-language day cares.

And she said immersion brings another potential benefit: "A bilingual
person almost always develops into a philosophically flexible person,"
she said. "And that's basically what tolerance is."

At the Spanish for Fun Academy, owner Martinez says she has seen
impressive results as well, especially with early starters. Students
who began learning Spanish while still in the cradle are now confident
speakers. "All the toddlers speak Spanish very well," she said.
"They're fluent ..."

Still, researchers warn to keep the gains in perspective.

"It can be misleading to say the younger the child is, the easier the
learning," said Dina Castro, a scientist at UNC's Frank Porter Graham
Child Development Institute who specializes in young second-language
learners.

Toddlers may learn to use a second language for basic needs, Castro
explains, like asking for food or toys. But that doesn't mean they'll
be able to express themselves in more sophisticated ways when they're
older.

And once children leave the immersion environment, second language
skills may fade quickly. "It's wonderful that they start early. ...
But that's the beginning of the process," Castro said. "If you don't
support the child in continuing to learn the second language, they're
going to lose it."

Though her daughter is still in diapers, Maya's mom, Brooke, is
already planning for the future. When the time comes, she's thinking
of enrolling Maya in a dual-language program offered at Carrboro
Elementary. Kindergarten through fifth-grade students in the program
are taught for half the day in English and half in Spanish.

"If you don't use it, you lose it," said Carver-Akers, who is opening
a private language-immersion elementary school in Durham next fall.
"It's not like riding a bike." She says interest in the school shows
parents are beginning to see the importance of a second language.

"Most people in the world are bilingual," she said. "And we're just
the opposite as Americans."

For now, however, Maya is still working on her first word. On Friday
afternoon at Tiny Steps, she waits in the baby room, the last to
leave.

Mom and dad come in, and the room is suddenly filled with a strange
language: English. It's time to go home. On the way out, propped on
mom's hip, Maya tries to wave goodbye to her teacher.

"Adios, Maya," Mahlie said. "Te veo el lunes." ("I'll see you on Monday.")

http://www.chapelhillnews.com/news/story/11630.html


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