“Buenos días,” may soon become a common greeting among local elementary school children. Two years ago, integrating world languages into the elementary school curriculum emerged as an element of the White Bear Lake School District’s strategic planning process. The district surveyed more than 1,000 parents, and results indicated that more than 90 percent wanted their children to begin learning a second language before middle school.
Further exploration within the district involved discussions with language expert Kendall King, professor of second languages and cultures at the University of Minnesota and author of The Bilingual Edge: Why, When and How to Teach Your Child a Second Language. King’s research shows that knowing more than one language can provide children with cognitive, social and personal advantages. Those advantages include enhanced creativity and literacy, deeper cross-cultural understanding, adaptability and competiveness in future job markets.
School board member Bob Shevik says many experts agree that learning a second language at a young age has advantages similar to those benefits of early music instruction. “We’ve found,” says Shevik, “that introducing second language concepts in elementary grades provides an overall improvement in all language skills, and that those students are also more likely to pursue other language options later in their academic careers.” Shevik goes on to say that a young student may or may not retain all of the second language they are taught in elementary school, but those kids are still better prepared for adapting to other languages later on in life. Languages offered to middle school and high school students within the district include French, German, Spanish, American Sign Language and Chinese.
In light of the positive survey feedback and research advocating early learning, the White Bear Lake School District has begun phase one of its new elementary world language program. The languages selected for instruction in elementary grades were determined by parent survey preferences. Students in grades four and five will receive 90 minutes of language instruction per week in Spanish or Chinese. Six schools will offer Spanish; two schools will offer Chinese. Grades K-3 will continue to have exploratory language experiences such as those found at St. Paul’s Concordia Language Village, a cultural education program that aims to prepare kids for responsible citizenship in a global community.
Jenny Lief is a parent of two youngsters who attend Lincoln Elementary, where Chinese is being taught. “I’m excited about my children’s exposure to a second language,” she says. “There is a cultural benefit as well as a cognitive benefit to this program. My children will learn how to learn a language.” Lief says she is especially excited at the prospect that her children will learn Chinese. “It’s not a language with Latin roots and won’t be easy to learn. But it’s a widely used language in the world today. China is growing and so is U.S. interaction with China. I may not agree with everything that goes on politically over in China, but I still see the need for Americans to learn about the Chinese culture.”
The goal in White Bear Lake is to make teach language based on the rest of the curriculum; to provide quality time that goes beyond learning colors, numbers, letters and basic vocabulary; and to gain a better understanding of world cultures.
Leif hopes to see foreign language instruction integrated into daily lessons in weather or science terminology. She would like the school district to shoot for a high frequency of second-language usage. Shevik agrees and says that the district will continue to develop language proficiency levels and hopes to expand the elementary world language program more fully for grades K–3 during phase two next year.
