In the morning at Garfield’s School 8 as she instructs first-graders in math, Joanna Adamczyk looks like someone who’s ready for a job interview at an investment bank.

But by midafternoon, about a mile away at School 4 and doing the same thing for fifth-graders, she looks more like a teacher. A teacher who has gone through the struggles of a long day.

Adamczyk is one of Garfield’s three bilingual teachers for 219 Polish-born students in the state’s only fully bilingual education program in Polish. She shuttles between two schools, conducts classes in both Polish and English, juggles curricula for youngsters from 5 to 11, and converts every encounter with her students into an experience in learning English.

With such pressures on her imagination and stamina, her day can be very long day indeed.

“No,” she said, laughing, when asked if she collapses after her last students have left for home. “I go to the gym.”

Bilingual education is not new to New Jersey. Of the 1.1 million children in public school last year, 44,914, 4 percent, were youths whose first language was not English, said Hector Billafane, spokesman on bilingual education for the state Department of Education. They received special training in 95 bilingual education and 180 English as a Second Language (ESL) programs.

“The highest concentration is in Grades 1 to 8, with 27,538 bilingual students out of a total of 658,000,” Billafane said.

Projections show that “these numbers will swell in the next 10 years,” he said. “New Jersey has become a major port of entry for the countries of the world.”

Spanish is the most common bilingual program. But statewide, students from the Indian subcontinent, Haiti, China, Laos, and Ethiopia also are receiving some instruction in their languages, Punjabi, Gujarati, Kasmiri, Arabic, Chjang, Creole, Lao, and Amharic among them.

All the programs have the dual goal of teaching the English language while they instruct in basic subjects like mathematics and American history. But they vary considerably in how they achieve those goals.

Wallington offers its 134 Polish speakers what it calls intensified ESL, two periods a day in special English instruction classes, the remainder of the day with the general school population.

Englewood teaches its elementary school Spanish speakers with a team approach called developmental bilingual education. The team uses both languages at different times.

Garfield has the only fully bilingual program in Polish. This means that students are taught in both their native language and English.

Joanna Adamczyk’s day starts in the basement of Garfield’s Columbus School, where she teaches the English alphabet to nine children who fit neatly into the miniature furniture of classrooms for kindergartners and first-graders.

Shortly after 9, those pupils are replaced in two waves by 15 fourth-graders. They learn math concepts, number recognition, and reading skills. Discussion is conducted in a mix of Polish and English.

Isabella labors over a number in English.

“800,” she says. Adamczyk corrects her: “8,000.”

“8,070,” Isabella says. Again, a correction. “8,107,” Adamczyk says.

Some clearly have more English skills than others. They’re the ones who respond quickly to questions asked in English. They volunteer to read English text, and they read it audibly.

The others often look perplexed, almost as if they’re back in Silesia or Galicia, where they were born. They perk up when Adamczyk speaks in Polish. Tomasz is one of them; he is barely audible when he reads about triceratops from an English-language workbook on dinosaurs.

“Speaking comes last,” Adamczyk said. “They’re very much afraid of making mistakes.”

She walks the aisles, her talk moving seamlessly in a neutral tone between Polish and English. Occasionally, when she talks with one of her students, her voice becomes more intimate.

With neighboring Wallington, the city has long been a magnet to Polish immigrants. In the last year, because of the Immigration Act of 1990, that pull has grown stronger. The law eases restrictions on immigration to the United States for 40,000 citizens of certain countries adversely affected by a 1965 quota law. Last year, nearly 10,400 Poles received visas.

Garfield and Wallington’s school districts, the poorest in Bergen County, are at the front line in dealing with the law’s effects.

When Wallington schools reopened in September, they had 134 Polish speakers, 69 more than expected based on figures from the previous June.

The surge forced the district to hire two bilingual teachers, one full-timer and a part-timer. The expense is taxing the district’s already strained budget.

Garfield’s Polish-speaking enrollment jumped 55 percent from June’s 143, nearly 300 percent from the 76 a year earlier. Fully 7 percent of the district’s 3,120 student are Polish speakers. The sudden increase also sent Garfield administrators on a search for faculty to supplement their pair of Polish bilingual instructors, Adamczyk and Irene Kirsch.

The new teacher started in October.

Despite the added staff, it won’t get any easier next year.

Garfield and Wallington school officials are bracing for a bigger influx of Polish speakers. According to the State Department, nearly 20,000 Poles have applied for visas.



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