Double The Learning

Popular dual-language class includes English- and Spanish-speaking children.

Half the children in Gail Soriano’s kindergarten at Fairhaven School in Mundelein start school in the fall speaking English and half speaking Spanish. But she speaks Spanish to all of them 90 percent of the time.

One day she started the morning with the children sitting on the floor. Facing an easel on which she had written a letter in Spanish to all the pupils, they read along with her. “Queridos amigos,” (Dear friends,) it started. Then in short Spanish sentences it listed plans for the day and ended, “Con carino,” (with love,) Sra. Soriano.”

Next the teacher asked if some of the children would like to tell about what they had done Sunday. Lisa Jasso volunteered and told in Spanish about a day of fishing. To be sure that the English-speaking pupils understood the story, Soriano pantomimed dropping a line in the water and then, wriggling her hand in the air, portrayed a jumping fish.

Although most of these kindergartners at the school in Mundelein’s District 76 take their school day for granted, the dual language program they’re in is attracting a lot of interest in their hometown. The program, which starts in kindergarten and continues through 5th grade, combines in a single class children who speak English and those who speak Spanish. The program’s goal is for the pupils to be fluent in each other’s languages by the end of 5th grade.

A number of schools on the East and West Coasts have been using the dual language approach over the last 10 years. Other Chicago-area schools using the program include three elementary schools in Highland Park and a parochial school in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood.

Fairhaven introduced its program in fall 1998 with 24 kindergartners equally divided between English and Spanish speakers and each language group split evenly between boys and girls.

Last school year, along with the kindergarten class, Fairhaven had a dual language 1st grade, and this year will add a 2nd grade whose teacher will be coming from Spain. Places in the classes are won by lottery, and the school gets twice as many requests for spots as there are openings.

In dual language kindergarten and 1st grade, one of the few times the teacher uses English is when working with the English-dominant pupils’ reading groups. From 2nd grade on, the teacher uses more English each year until 5th grade, when the ratio is half and half .

Thirty percent of the families living in District 76 are Hispanic. “Several years ago the number of children at our schools who were not native English speakers began growing faster than we could properly accommodate them,” recalled Fairhaven Principal Colleen Pacatte. “At the same time we were also seeing that some of our bilingual students were not doing well in the upper grades.

“Looking for a better way to serve all our students, we started a yearlong study. As we investigated possibilities we found researchers reporting that dual language was by far the most successful approach being used in schools today for bilingual education. Research also showed that dual language programs are a major benefit to English-speaking children.”

“One of the key advantages dual language programs give children who don’t speak the majority language has to do with the way the brain develops,” said Elyse Minzer, District 76 director of curriculum and instruction. “Ordinarily at about 8 years old, children develop learning strategies and problem-solving skills. But that’s not true for a child in a classroom where she has to scramble to learn survival English. Instead, the learning-skills part of her brain shuts down. By 3rd grade she’ll be able to converse in English as well as children in her class, but won’t know the math and other subjects her classmates have learned.

“On the other hand, in the upper grades dual language students–both English and Spanish speakers–do as well or better than children from mainstream classes in creative thinking, problem-solving and academic subjects.”

Soriano noted that the native Spanish speakers in her kindergarten “feel valued and excited to be at school because their peers are learning Spanish and asking them, ‘How do you say this or that?”‘

Parents of English-speaking children at Fairhaven have wanted to enroll them in the program partly because pupils who learn a second language before they’re 10 turn out to be as fluent and accent-free as native speakers, Minzer said. “The one drawback to the program is that qualified teachers are really hard to find,” Minzer said.

One hundred seventy-five children in District 76’s three schools receive some kind of bilingual education. Those with a fair command of English are in regular classrooms and receive help for an hour or two each day from specially trained English as a Second Language teachers. In addition to the two dual language classes, five groups of children who have little or no English meet in bilingual classes with teachers who speak Spanish most of the day. These teachers present English as a separate subject equivalent to math or science.

In the spring, Fairhaven’s kindergarten and 1st grade dual language classes held their second annual Cinco de Mayo fiesta. “Two hundred of the children’s family members came, and we had a great big carry-in of Mexican food, and the children had made eight pinatas,” Soriano said. Washington School in School District 75, another Mundelein school district, has found its own way of connecting Hispanic families with their schools. The Family Resource Center is staffed by coordinator Jenny Illing, who is bilingual and is available from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on school days to help parents.

By 10:30 a.m. one spring morning, seven mothers had already come to the center with questions. Among the visitors was a mother who wanted to know if she was using the right application form for summer school, another asking how to get her child’s homework assignment and a third requesting help in getting a book for her child at the PTO book sale.

The center is stocked with children’s videos, some in Spanish and some in English, games for families to play and literature on effective parenting.

District 75, with four schools and a total enrollment of 2,350, has 180 Spanish-speaking pupils and seven bilingual teachers. “We’ve been gaining about 20 bilingual students a year,” said Supt. Raymond Partridge. “At this time we’re using a pull-out program for our bilingual students. The teachers take students out of their regular classes for an hour or two of small group instruction. Students stay in the program an average of three years.

“This year we have a bilingual study team looking at some new teaching options. Our current program has been working well enough for us, but we think we should have more than one approach.”

Partridge said the team has not made any recommendations yet but is favoring two possibilities: a dual language program and self-contained classrooms in which pupils and teachers speak Spanish.

Washington School Principal Shawn Walker is serving on the team exploring bilingual options and visited Fairhaven School. “Dual language seems promising,” he said. “It lets you educate Spanish-speaking children without isolating them and it lets all the children be learners and teachers.”

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For more information on the dual language program in Mundelein School District 76, call Elyse Minzer at 847-970-3550.



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