New York: Building a Nation of Polyglots, Starting With the Very Young

[Harold F. Schiffman]

November 14, 2007
On Education
Building a Nation of Polyglots, Starting With the Very Young

By JOSEPH BERGER
TARRYTOWN, N.Y.

Seven-year-old Cooper Van Der Meer is learning Spanish as a second
language. Thats right. This American native is lucky enough to be in a
school system that considers the acquisition of languages so important in
todays polyglot, globally entwined America that students start learning a
foreign language in kindergarten.

When Cooper is asked to match el ojo with the figure of a colorful
monstruo, he moves the words on an electronic blackboard right up to the
monsters eye, winning a smile from his teacher, Vanessa Franco. His
second-grade classmate, Carissa Perez, may be able to slip the words la
nariz up to the monsters nose more confidently since her Dominican roots
give her an edge. But for Cooper, recognizing body parts, days of the
week, numbers, animals and greetings in Spanish is a big deal.

Sometimes I dont need to speak Spanish, but I probably will need to, he
said, sounding like a future master of the universe. I want to own a pet
shop because I like dogs. If theres a Spanish person in the store, Ill
probably translate that guy.

Coopers wisdom is percolating across the nation. The United States, often
fiercely chauvinistic and sometimes outright isolationist, has never
considered the ability to speak a foreign language an essential talent.
Unlike many Europeans and Asians who learn languages in primary school,
most Americans do not get the chance until high school or in the grades
just before  at too advanced an age to soak in quirky words and syntax
with the nimbleness needed for fluency. That is why traveling Americans
resign themselves to speaking menu French or Spanish.

But with an economy that recognizes few geographical borders, and with
people from all over the planet becoming our next-door neighbors, more
Americans are demanding language instruction earlier in school.

Martha Abbott, director of education at the American Council on the
Teaching of Foreign Languages, said that while there is no reliable data
on the trend, her organization keeps learning of more school systems that
think paying for elementary school language teachers is money well
invested.

Since September 2006, all students in grades one through five in Loudon
County, Va., have been given 30 to 60 minutes of Spanish instruction each
week. Last year, officials in Fairfax County, Va.  which, with 165,439
students, is the nations 13th-largest school system  decided to expand the
study of foreign languages to all 137 elementary schools over a seven-year
period. Twenty-five Fairfax schools provide 30-minute lessons twice a week
in Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Chinese or French starting in the first
grade. Ten schools have ambitious immersion programs where math, science
and health are taught in a foreign language.

Paula Patrick, the Fairfax systems foreign language coordinator, said
Americans have for too long had a mind-set that everyone else in the world
could learn English. Her district is receiving appeals from businesses
that need global-ready travelers and from a health care industry that
needs translators.

The growth in language instruction is also taking place in college. A
survey by the Modern Language Association released yesterday found a 13
percent increase in language-course enrollments between 2002 and 2006,
with a 127 percent increase in the number of students taking Arabic.

Foreign language instruction does not come cheap. Fairfax estimates that
hiring instructors for its expanded program will cost $16 million. The
mystery is why more affluent districts that are willing to pay for gifted
football coaches arent starting language instruction earlier, particularly
in areas with significant immigrant populations. The logic for doing so
seems obvious. As every immigrant knows, its far easier to learn a
language as a 6-year-old than as a 16-year-old.

Theyre like sponges, said Mary Lynn Pearlman, a kindergarten teacher here,
speaking of her young pupils. In middle school they would worry about how
they sound and their accent. Here, they dont care.

But in this school district in Westchester County, where Latinos make up
half the 2,600 students, learning Spanish is also a strategy for weaving
together a community splintered along class, race and linguistic lines.

The districts two villages, Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow, are both heavily
blue collar, and when factories like the General Motors assembly plant
closed, the houses left empty by departing auto workers were filled with
Latino immigrants. Until four years ago, Hispanic students, most with
roots in Ecuador or the Dominican Republic, were placed in bilingual
classes where they would learn all subjects in Spanish or in mainstream
classes, with extra English help. Young children from English-speaking
homes, though, had no option to take Spanish, in, say, the way English is
offered in Sweden.

In 2003, with increased emphasis on standardized tests exposing how poorly
bilingual students were doing in English, Tarrytown did away with most
bilingual classes. Tarrytown also found that bilingual students had a
tendency to stick together, said Michele Milliam, principal of the Tappan
Hill School.

Under the new regimen, where almost everyone studies two languages,
teachers are noticing that Hispanic and white children are more likely to
play together and that parents from different cultures are more willing to
approach one another.

Its not as easy to harbor stereotypes when its their children your
children are mixing with, said Dr. Howard Smith, the superintendent.

Tarrytowns program follows a two-tier approach. In classes where Spanish
is taught as a foreign language, a specialist visits the second, third and
fourth grades every fourth day for a 40-minute lesson. (Ms. Franco teaches
16 second- and third-grade classes over the four-day cycle.) In
kindergarten and first grade, students are given 20-minute lessons daily
by Spanish-speaking assistant teachers.

In one kindergarten class the other day, the students told the assistant
teacher, Aura Feliciano, the colors they were wearing  rojo, amarillo,
azul or anaranjado (red, yellow, blue and orange). About 20 percent of the
elementary students, volunteers all, receive more challenging immersion
classes.

In all Spanish classes, officials said, newcomers from Spanish-speaking
homes, get their moments to shine.

That includes John Tintin, a first grader and son of Ecuadorean immigrants
who claims to have learned Spanish when I came out of my moms stomach.

Tarrytowns program is far from ideal. One principal, Marilyn
Mercado-Belvin of the John Paulding School, has let Mr. Smith know that
students need Spanish twice a week, not just every fourth day.

But even with flaws, the program produces tangential benefits, like the
kindness shown by Ryan Geary, a shy, blue-eyed 6-year-old. She likes to
learn Spanish, she said, to be helpful because I have some Spanish
friends, and they dont speak much English.

Ryan cant actually speak Spanish well. Not yet. But she is learning.

E-mail: joeberg at nytimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/education/14education.html?ref=education

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