So, you studied French in high school, but never quite got the hang of those back-of-the-throat Rs, right? Don't you wish that you'd gotten started on the François earlier, so maybe now you'd be able to at least order a bottle of red with a pretty accent?
You may not have been able to begin your foreign language studies until well into your teens, but your kids don't have to face the same fate. The Triangle is full of options for foreign language learning, from bilingual preschools to Saturday afternoon language academies to internationally focused elementary magnet schools.
Increasingly, parents are realizing the value of learning a foreign language, and many people believe that as young as possible is not young enough. But is that true?
According to Ryuko Kubota, an associate professor of second language education at UNC-Chapel Hill, the academic community hasn't yet reached an agreement about when to start teaching a second language.
"In terms of accent or pronunciation, the earlier the better," she says. True, younger children may pick up accents with ease, but older children generally learn the language itself much faster. So it's a trade off.
Nevertheless, there's nothing to be lost by starting your children on a foreign language program at an early age, Kubota says, and the cultural understanding gained by studying, say, Mexican Day of the Dead or Chinese New Year, is invaluable in our increasingly globalized society.
"Genuine intercultural communication is becoming more important," Kubota says.
In any case, by the time middle and high school rolls around, most local kids have their pick of foreign language classes from Spanish and French to Mandarin and Russian. But since most public schools in the area still offer limited, though growing, foreign language options at the elementary school level, parents have to make an extra effort if they want their kids to get an early start.
For the very youngest learners there are a number of preschools which are either bilingual or have a heavy focus on foreign languages. Anne Aherne-Daly, owner of the Language Tots preschool in Cary, believes that children younger than 4 learn a second language best through stories, music and art, and she won't even introduce a foreign-language alphabet until then. She says that most of her students have parents that either speak a second language themselves, or travel widely and understand the limitations of being monolingual. Her students leave with a "good introductory knowledge" of both Spanish and French, she says.
Though the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school district seems to have set the pace for foreign language learning with its recent implementation of mandatory Spanish classes from kindergarten through fifth grade and its two fully bilingual elementary programs, it is by no means alone among public school systems showing interest in foreign languages. There are a number of magnet elementary schools in Durham and Wake counties that focus on learning a second language.
Millbrook Elementary in Raleigh has an internationally focused program to train students to become citizens of the world. This, of course, involves foreign languages. Students in grades K through 3, receive 30 to 40 minutes of French or Spanish instruction every week; fourth- and fifth-graders get 40 minutes three times a week. Teachers use what's known as the TPR (total physical response) method of teaching, which uses the physical acting out of words and phrases to help students learn new words.
Students leave the fifth grade with "a good handle on the oral language," says Terri Walker, the primary years program coordinator for Millbrook.
Burton Geo-World elementary magnet school in Durham goes even further, with classes in French, Spanish or German every day. Program coordinator Nancy Cheek explains that at Burton language study is less about usefulness and more about a larger goal of making students into "international people" who understand diversity and distinctive points of view.
"We figure that one language is just as good as the other," she says.
In addition to the ever-popular French and Spanish, languages like Mandarin Chinese are increasingly common in area schools, reflecting the area's changing demographics. Chapel Hill's Glenwood Elementary began a dual language program in English and Mandarin in 2002, where half the day is taught in one language and half in the other. (There is a similar program in Spanish at Carrboro Elementary.)
Across town, Phillips Middle School has played host to a popular Saturday afternoon Chinese language school. Approximately 280 children receive in instruction in Chinese language and culture, with two hours of grammar and vocabulary followed by two hours of dance, chess, drawing, violin and more.
Although most of the students are the children of Chinese immigrants who want them to learn their ancestral language, there are some non-Chinese American students who benefit from the classes as well, says Chunqin Deng, the school's academic director.
Whatever reason parents have for enrolling their children in Chinese school, or any other foreign language program for that matter, Deng says, one thing is certain: "If you know more than one language, it should be good for your future."
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