Posted on 01/26/2004 6:22:09 PM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
Annie Barrera wanted her two children to be bilingual. But when she moved into the Leander school district six years ago, she found that foreign languages weren't taught to elementary school students. So Barrera took the teaching into her own hands. She volunteered as a part-time Spanish teacher at Steiner Ranch Elementary. Now, Barrera has successfully helped bring Spanish classes to nearly all elementary schools in the district.
She is one of dozens of parents across the country who have started grass-roots foreign language programs during the past decade. "We're living in such a global society that it's important to be multilingual," Barrera said. "The accent can be taught at a young age. The older you are, the harder it is to learn the material." Most school districts in the United States, including those in Central Texas, don't offer foreign languages until middle or high school. Only 31 percent provide second language education earlier, according to a 1997 survey by the Center of Applied Linguistics, a Washington-based nonprofit organization that researches and serves as a resource about language and culture.
But that number was up 10 percent from 1987, and researchers say parents such as Barrera are part of the reason. "It is very much a grass-roots movement," said Nancy Rhodes, director of the foreign language education division for that group. "Parents are pushing for it." Barrera got her idea from the Austin school district's Summitt Elementary, which had volunteers teach Spanish there when her children attended that school. Parents at other elementary schools in Austin such as Gullett and Highland Park have raised money to hire a foreign-language teacher, but the district doesn't have a formal early language program.
"It costs to do it the right way. Millions of dollars," said Michael Hydak, coordinator for the Austin district's foreign language program. Even when foreign languages are implemented in the elementary schools, those programs often are easy targets during budget crunches because educators usually emphasize subjects in which proficiency is tested and tracked nationally. The Eanes district, for example, had a foreign language program on the elementary level that was cut in 1994. Barrera, 44, was affected by a similar attitude toward foreign language study when she started attending school in Colorado.
She grew up speaking Spanish at home, but teachers discouraged her and her siblings from speaking it at school. Her friends whose parents quit speaking Spanish had trouble coming back to the language or learning new ones. She determined to teach her children, 13-year-old Alex and 16-year-old Joseph, Spanish from a young age. Barrera began teaching Spanish at Steiner Ranch Elementary School in 1998 and recruited other parents to become volunteer language teachers. The district helped choose a curriculum, and this year there are more than 100 volunteers trained to teach across the district.
The district paid nearly $9,000 for the curriculum materials and pays Barrera by the hour to train other volunteers, about $4,200 last year. Parents don't pay for the program, although some money can be donated by the school's parent-teacher association for extra materials. For now, the language sessions are short, only 30 minutes once a week during school hours. Students' competency levels aren't charted, either. However, Barrera is focusing on the long term, building on top of each year's lessons to achieve mastery. For example, after receiving the Spanish instruction for a few years, the fifth-grade students at Steiner Ranch wrote letters in Spanish to students studying English in Agua(s) Caliente(s)(sic--added s's mine), Mexico.
While her students may be ahead of many of their peers in Central Texas, they still lag behind children elsewhere in the country. In North Carolina, the Alliance for Language Learning raised the level of visibility for the need for foreign language education, said Mary Lynn Redmond, director of foreign language at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem. The advocacy group has begun Vision 2010, a project to make foreign language part of a core curriculum in each of the state's 117 school districts. The first pilot site of Vision 2010 is East Clayton Elementary, which provides a daily Spanish program. "The huge majority of our community is now demanding second language," Principal Peggy Smith said. "I'm very committed to making it work."
In Lexington, S.C., elementary school French teacher Kay Hoag provides research on the benefits of early language learning to about 50 parents and educators each year so they can start their own programs. In the past year, she's had interest from California to Wyoming to Minnesota. The Leander school district doesn't have plans or money to implement foreign language into elementary students' daily instruction. However, board members and administrators said they support the program Barrera has put in place. "It's been a great way to introduce Spanish at the elementary school level," said Grace Barber Jordan, the board vice president. "I think it's a huge bang for the buck, because they're getting so much out of it. They've been like little sponges."
Or, are these English-speaking parents attacking teachers whenever little "Johnny" is scolded in school or fails to do his schoolwork? So many will want to fly into a rage that another language is being introduced and will have a valid point...multilingualism leads to conflict. But wait a minute, when teachers try to push children to learn in the public schools, quite often it is the native U.S. parents that present a problem and are not willing to support the academic standards NOR discipline.
Looks to me like folks might be getting what they deserve.
|
Just a few more years and more than likely it won't be. Now, I am fluently bilingual and teach children to be likewise. However, most U.S. students (born and reared here) are unwilling to learn foreign language. Very difficult. Very complex problem.
It's really stupid how schools in this country don't stress foreign languages the way schools in Europe do. While English is more and more the internaional language of business, it is very useful to know foreign languages. First of all learning a foreign language helps to teach you about your first language. If you take a romance language, you will become acquainted with the Latin roots of many English words and improve your English vocabulary.
So? I come from an Italian family, they took great pride in learning the English language and sending their children off to English speaking schools. I believe it is the burden of the immigrant, their cultural ticket to participation in the so called American dream. People can rant on and on about the President's workers' program, but the thing that will destroy this country is the parallel culture that is taking hold.
True. It's also sadly true that the only grammar many students learn is when they take a foreign language. Students get to college and have no idea how to write a coherent, correct sentence, much less a paragraph or report.
Well, let's be fair about this. American public school barely teach English. What hope do they have with a foreign language?
Another factor is immersion. In Europe, you drive 200 miles and you are in a First World country that speaks a different languange. In the U.S., you drive 200 miles and you can still be in your own state. Once you learn "eh", you speak Canadian and who risks driving into Mexico?
My own family has been English/Spanish bilingual since the 1800's. This was accomplished by immersion.
Before Castro, when the family lived in Cuba, if a kid's English wasn't up to snuff by the time he was in high school, he would be shipped off to an American boarding school to sink or swim in an English-only enviornment.
When we came to the U.S., the home was a Spanish-only enviornment while school was English-only. In high school, I attended a Cuban Jesuit high school transplanted from Havana. All classes were English-only except for Spanish grammar and literature which were Spanish-only.
One particular student, recently arrived from Cuba with a poor grasp of English, just had to suck it up and sink or swim in the English-only classes. None of that "bilingual" B.S. By the end of his first year at the school, he spoke English.
That's how you learn a language. Immersion. Everything else is just a waste of time.
Ooooooh.... You're right.
Me, I live 8 miles from Leander but have to give it as my address city because the hill country geography is hard to incorporate into cities.
I knew it was all over three years ago when, taking my daughter to Faubion elementary, Spanish signs were everywhere.. e.g.
Restroom
Bano
Lunchroom
Comida
Absolutely everything in the school was labeled with English/Spanish tags.
The experts say ENGLISH is the most difficult language to learn!
The work "Run", for example, has 92 different meaning!!
I could drive less than 150 miles and be in a third world country, or I could drive 400 miles north or 600 miles west and still be in the same state. On the other hand I could get on a plane and be in Europe in only nine or ten hours. The world is a much smaller place than it was when I was a child. It's a lot more important to know foreign languages now.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.