Some schools say a federal education law from the last administration has hurt language teaching. Fewer schools teach French, German, Russian or Japanese. But a national survey found that in recent years foreign language teaching decreased in public elementary and middle schools. You just catch on."Īnother student says she likes to learn other languages. One sixth grader at London Towne says it's not like traditional teaching.ĭANIEL SHANK-ROWE: "It's really just like being in the environment where everyone's talking Spanish. The county also offers immersion programs in French, German and Japanese.
London Towne Elementary is in Fairfax County, Virginia. MCALPIN: "The experience of history has made us a bit skeptical, OK? Because it's another thing that sounds like on the surface is a great idea." McAlpin is executive director of a national nonprofit group called Pro-English. They say bilingual education has not always taught Hispanic students enough English.
And that can only happen if they have a good, solid foundation in their first language."īut some people are still not sure about these programs. HELEN ARZOLA: "The goal of the dual-language program is to teach low-income Hispanic children English - good English, social English and academic English. And she says children from Spanish-speaking families benefit from learning in their own language. She says her kindergarteners from English-speaking families may have never heard Spanish before. So this is the time to learn a language." That's their reason for being, for the most part. HELEN ARZOLA: "A child before eight is a language learning machine. Helen Arzola teaches the youngest children. MYRA OLMEDA: "So what happens is when these both groups together, they're learning, you know, one from the other - which is the greatest thing that is happening." The other half are native English speakers. Half of the children are from families that speak Spanish at home. Later in the day they learn only in English. In some classes, only Spanish is spoken, even during the Pledge of Allegiance - a morning tradition for American schoolchildren.Īnd this is a second grade class where the children learn math and other subjects completely in Spanish. Here is how it works at London Towne Elementary School in Centreville, Virginia, outside Washington. This method is called dual or two-way immersion. In the last ten years, hundreds of American schools have begun to offer a new way to teach foreign languages. This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
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