KERMAN—Hand over his heart, 10-year-old Ruben Marquez joined his classmates in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance moments after the morning bell rang.

Speaking with a slight accent, he gazed at the U.S. flag, not noticing the poster-sized placard next to it with the pledge translated into red and blue Spanish words.

Finishing the pledge in English, the class burst into a patriotic song marking the official beginning of its school day.

The dual-language approach to learning is the foundation of the EXCELL program at Kerman-Floyd Elementary School, where nearly half the students speak Spanish as their native language.

So far, officials say, it is working.

EXCELL, an acronym for Excellence in Curriculum for English Language Learning, was begun five years ago as an experiment. It has since become a model for similar bilingual programs across the state.

The idea came from teachers and administrators in Kerman who believed research showing that students learn best in their primary language while they learn English slowly, instead of learning only in English with no instruction in their native language.

Teacher Laura Correa noted the placard next to the flag as an example.

“I just have it there so the students will really know what it means when they are saying it,” she said. “I doubt if they will ever have cause to say it in Spanish, but it helps them understand what they are saying and why.”

The program’s goal is to graduate students who speak English and are on grade level by the time they reach the fourth grade, said Correa, a point often misunderstood by those who oppose bilingual education.

Kerman has 13 EXCELL classrooms — four at one school and nine at another.

Spanish-speaking pupils are taught core subjects like math, science and geography in their native language in grades 1, 2 and 3, as they learn English. Fine art, physical education and music classes are integrated with all pupils and are taught in English.

By the time they reach the fourth grade, pupils transfer to classes taught entirely in English. The district designed the program at the behest of teachers who were researching new teaching methods, searching for more effective alternatives.

“It’s exhausting to try to teach a bilingual class by explaining something in English and then translating the same in Spanish,” Correa said.

“But that’s what a lot of teachers are still doing. This way, there is one teacher, one language and the learning goes on as the students learn to speak and understand English.”

Correa is one of a handful of Spanish-speaking teachers in the program. She feels strongly about the program largely because she had such difficulty learning English when she came to school.

“Finding the right teachers was a major problem,” said Lloyd Wamhof, superintendent of the Kerman school district, who also served on a state task force on bilingual education.

Most of the start-up cost was covered by a $ 50,000 federal education grant; several other grants also contributed. Administrators went to Guadalajara, Mexico, and spent $ 6,000 on books and teaching supplies. After months of searching, two teachers were hired. Then the classes began.

Wamhof says the program is ideal for the 3,200-student district because it is small and 65 percent of the pupils speak Spanish. Last year, the district hired a full-time Punjabi-speaking teacher and tutors to serve the 110 Indian students who have moved into the area.

“It’s just a matter of prioritizing,” Wamhof said. “We just have to look at what happens to these students if we don’t do something for them. They’re going to drop out and have problems.”

Ron Unruh, director of the Education Research and Service Center at California State University, Fresno, is studying the learning ability of students in the EXCELL program and comparing it with students who are one grade ahead.

“I’ve seen a lot of bilingual ed programs, and this one has impressed me from the beginning,” Unruh said.

All EXCELL students have shown between 3 and 18 percentage points improvement over those in the class ahead of them, he said. They do not receive traditional letter grades and are evaluated on portfolios of work created throughout the year.

Some students, like Lupita Sandoval, 10, went from a remedial reading group to the honor roll in one year.

“I wanted to be like my friends and be able to communicate with my friends,” she said quietly. “But I was scared because I thought I might say something wrong.”

Because of success stories like Lupita’s, many bilingual teachers are frustrated by people who are against bilingual education.

“It takes foresight to recognize that we are living in a bilingual culture, and if our kids are going to compete in the world marketplace, they need to develop skills in both languages,” Correa said.

“I think we cheat our English-speaking students by not offering them the opportunity to learn another language while they are young and it is easier to learn.”



Comments are closed.