Palo Alto's International School teaches French and Mandarin in system of 'bilingual immersion'

Noah Berman, 7, spent his summer last year vacationing in France with his parents, playing with little French boys and girls at an outdoor nature “l’ecole” – in the countryside of Provence.

This summer, the entire family visited a family camp in the resort town of Saint-Tropez in Southern France near the French Riviera. But unlike many Americans who travel abroad for extended periods of time, bridging the communication gap was no trouble for this Palo Alto family.

While neither of his parents speak much French, Noah is fluent – thanks to the four years he has spent as a student at the International School of the Peninsula.

This bilingual program in Palo Alto – one of several in the Bay Area – offers education in French as well as English (to children pre-kindergarten through ninth grade) or English and Chinese (to children pre-kindergarten through fourth grade).

Children and faculty returned to school last week to two Palo Alto locations: a campus on Cowper Avenue plus a multi-colored, newly refurbished building on Laura Lane in Palo Alto – the school’s first permanent home since it opened in 1979.

Since it was founded as a private school more than two decades ago, the International School has grown by leaps and bounds as more Bay Area families embrace the concept of “bilingual immersion education.”

“We’re all about helping children become bilingual, biliterate and bicultural,” said Head of School Ellen Fournier. “Research has shown that the brains of children who are bilingual develop differently. They are better at problem solving, are more creative, are more open to new ideas and consistently score better on tests.” Even children as young as 31/2 can grasp the fundamentals of French or Chinese, according to Fournier, who has read reams of research to back up the theory.

“Up to the age of 7 we find that children pick up a new language with the same ease with which they learned to speak English. As children get older they begin to regard another language as a ‘foreign’ language. It’s even harder for adults to learn another language,” said Fournier. “Europeans have long understood the benefits of people learning new languages. We live in a global economic community. These days, more and more Americans are beginning to recognize that being bilingual will provide more opportunities for their children.”

The International School of the Peninsula was first called the Peninsula French-American School. It was founded by a parent and educator, Charlotte de Gery, with a small group of parents and friends. The school originally opened its doors to nine students. By 1995, that number had grown to 220 students. Since then the school has grown to nearly 500 students, pre-kindergarten through ninth grade.

The school’s name changed in 1996 when it added the Mandarin Chinese-English program, which is scheduled to expand to fifth grade next year.

A bilingual believer

Fournier, who has been with the school five years, was working in Paris when she was recruited to head the International School in Palo Alto in 1995. A native of Boston, she grew up in a French-speaking family and studied comparative literature at Middlebury College in Vermont.

Fournier later spent time in Paris as a graduate student at the Sorbonne and ended up staying. She both taught and served as administrator of an international school that offered programs in 10 different languages. “I’m definitely a believer in bilingual education. I’ve seen what it can do,” said Fournier.

Today, there are more than 480 students – representing 30 different nationalities – attending the International School. The French-English program, which celebrated its 20th anniversary last year, appeals to many French expatriates living and working in the Bay Area since the curriculum is based on and accredited by the French educational system.

“Many of our French parents are planning to move back to France at some point and want to make sure their children can fit into the French school system,” said Fournier.

By comparison, said Fournier, “Many of the families who choose the Chinese program are American-born Chinese who want their children to have the culture they didn’t have growing up. Our children learn to read and write Mandarin early on and by fifth grade will

know 3,000 Chinese characters.” While more than half of the French students are either French born or have French parents, about 25 percent of children in the Chinese program speak it at home.

Other children might have one French or Asian-born parent. The school also draws parents who want more for their children than the basic high school or college French courses. “We have parents who want the gift of bilingualism for their children,” said Fournier, who encourages families to take trips abroad to help cement the language and cultural experiences for the youngsters.

Native speakers

The school’s policy dictates that all teachers are native speakers in whatever language they teach – one more assurance the children will pick up proper accent and syntax. By age 14, research has revealed, the immersion process is firmly rooted and the teenager will retain his or her bilingualism for life.

But while the bilingual aspect of the school is what draws many families, Fournier is quick to point out the school has an excellent academic reputation as well.

“We’re not a language school. We’re using language as a medium to teach a highly acclaimed program,” she said. Fifth graders, for example, have conducted live interviews in French via videoconference with explorer Jean-Louis Etienne about his treks to the North and South Poles.

Eighth graders studying music might participate in a discussion about the effects of computer technology on music composition – all in French. Second-graders in the Chinese program learn about ancient forms of calculation by working with an abacus.

Art projects often incorporate cultural lessons, such as celebrations focusing on the Chinese New Year, Cinco de Mayo or Bastille Day. The children often take field trips – from seeing a performance of “Carmen” at the San Jose Opera to visiting the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco.

Students read literature in its original language – whether English or American, something Fournier insists upon. “Our children are reading major novels like ‘Les Miserables’ in French, just as Victor Hugo wrote it. At the same time, they’ll read original works in English by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Translations just don’t do justice to the author and are never as good.”

Eighty percent of the instruction is in either French of Manda

rin, and 20 percent is in English. Research has shown that children can be taught up to 100 percent in a foreign language and their English won’t suffer, Fournier said, because the children are living in an English-speaking country.

A waiting list

The private, nonprofit school is overseen by a board of trustees. Tuition is related to the grade level; most begin above $10,000 a year. Scholarships are available, however.

The program is growing in popularity and there is a waiting list. Children live primarily on the Peninsula, although some students come from as far away as San Jose.

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Fournier, whose own two children grew up speaking more than one language, believes the combination of multiculturalism and high academic standards pays off. Her daughter, who has a master’s degree in business administration, is a marketing manager in Paris; her son runs his own venture capital business.

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Indeed, in its past two decades, the International School of the Peninsula has produced scores of graduates who go on to attend such prestigious private schools as Crystal Springs Uplands School, Castilleja and Menlo schools.

The school newsletter frequently spotlights successful graduates who go on to college at UC-Berkeley, Yale, Cornell and other top-notch public and private universities.

“Our students are proud to be bilingual and proud of their heritage,” said Fournier.

The bilingual advantage

Parent Nora Yam has two children attending the International School, a son in fourth grade and a daughter in kindergarten.

A native of Asia who has lived in the United States for two decades, Yam wanted to give her children the bilingual advantage. “I’ve lived in countries where people speak more than one language. I went to school with friends from Europe and they all spoke two, even three languages. I think it’s a great advantage,” said Yam, who works in sales for a large Peninsula computer firm.

“We wanted our children to get a superior education and also to learn another language,” said Yam, whose husband was born in the United States. “We chose Chinese because we’d like them to understand their own culture. And Mandarin is the official language of China, spoken exactly the way it is written.

“A lot of parents send their

children to an after-school Chinese program, but I feel my children are more comfortable in an environment where everyone speaks more than one language.”

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Wenda and James O’Reilly of Palo Alto have two daughters who are graduates of the International School, Ahna, 15, and Noelle, 14, both of whom now attend Menlo School. Their daughter Mariele, 12, is in seventh grade in the French section of International.

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The O’Reillys have been involved in the school for about eight years. Wenda, who has a Ph.D. in education from Stanford University, lived and worked in Europe early on in her adult life, learning French while teaching sailing, swimming, skiing and yoga at Club Med.

Her husband, James, is a travel writer and publisher of an award-winning series of travel books, “Travelers’ Tales.” His job frequently takes the whole family overseas for months at a time.

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“My husband is very aware of what it means to be a citizen of the world, and we wanted that for our daughters. It’s important as Americans that we not be so isolated. Even the taxi drivers in other countries speak three languages.

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“I learned Italian and French as an adult, but I quickly realized from my own experiences that one of the hardest things for an adult to do is learn a foreign language. It takes at least 5,000 hours of speaking a language to become fluent. You can’t get that from one hour of class a day.”

Since they’ve been attending the International School, all three of the O’Reilly girls speak French with as much ease as if they’d been born in France or Switzerland. “They have perfect accents and are very articulate,” said proud mom Wenda, who even had the girls conduct a meeting with museum officials at the Louvre as part of an artistic venture. Because of the parallels with the French school system, the O’Reilly girls have no trouble picking up where they left off when living abroad. “The French system is more standardized than the American system. Sometimes the children in France are using the same textbook as they are at the International School.”

“I think kids who are educated in a bilingual setting develop a tolerance for other people. They also grow up with a flexible way of thinking and a great deal of self-esteem. The teachers at the International School are like second parents. They have high expectations but provide a strong safety net and lots of support. Even my French

has improved tremendously. I went from being pretty good conversationally to learning proper grammar.”

Stuart Berman and his wife, June Bower, are proud of their son, Noah, who started at the International School as a pre-kindergartner and is now in second grade.

“We both took the standard American approach to learning another language. We thought it would be great if our son could really learn another language. Now he’s fluent. We always felt self-conscious not speaking another language while traveling,” said Berman who added that the family makes a point of visiting France for summer vacations to help bolster lessons in the classroom. “It’s a great excuse to go to France every year,” he said. “When the French people hear Noah speak they’re stunned; they always want to know how he speaks such proper French.”

Information nights for both the French-English and Mandarin Chinese-English programs are planned for November. The International School of the Peninsula is at 151 Laura Lane and at 3233 Cowper St., both in Palo Alto. The school is fully accredited by the Ministre de l’Education Nationale and was granted a full six-year accreditation by the California Association of Independent Schools (CAIS) and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) in 1997. For more information, call (650) 251-8500 or visit the school Web site at www.istp.org.



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