Dual language program helps native, nonnative speakers alike

The word is finally getting out about one of Elgin Area School District U-46's best kept secrets: dual language education.

For the first time this fall, Channing Elementary graduates will have the chance to continue in the dual language program in middle school.

One dual language class will be added at Ellis Middle School for seventh-graders who graduated from Channing's program.

Unlike traditional bilingual education, where students are taught in their native language for the majority of the school day, dual language instruction splits a select group of students' school days and subjects between Spanish and English.

According to the Center for Applied Linguistics, there are more than 266 similar programs around the country. Students are taught in English while also learning Spanish, Japanese, Navajo, Chinese, French and Korean.

Locally, Schaumburg Township Elementary District 54, which launched a dual language program in 2005, has grown to include three elementary schools and a middle school with Spanish-English dual language programs.

At Channing, the program was first established in 2001. With kindergarten through sixth-grade classes capped at 25 students, the school deals with waiting lists for the program year after year.

The instructional method is clearly working.

With 72 percent of Channing's students coming from low-income homes and nearly 85 percent of students identified as minorities, the majority of Channing's students have been labeled "at risk" of educational failure.

High test scores from dual language students helped bump Channing off the state's academic warning list in 2005. It has not returned.

The percentage of students, according to 2007 state report cards, making Adequate Yearly Progress at Channing in reading is 66.3 percent; in math, it's 76.6 percent. Both are well above the No Child Left Behind bench mark of 55 percent.

Interim Superintendent Mary Jayne Broncato said in April that U-46 considered expanding the dual language program for a number of reasons.

Along with parental advocacy, "we've been focusing on the English Language Learners program these past few years," she said. One of the options that has come to the forefront has been dual language," she said.

Puerto Rican-born Superintendent Jose Torres in May sat down with my editor and me, outlining his hopes for the district.

Examining the dual-language program will be a priority in his new role, he told us.

Let's hope so.

Since nearly half of U-46's 41,000 students are Hispanic, why not tap into the cultural and linguistic immersion that's at the district's fingertips?

After all, Channing parent Kristin Webb says, the end result is "not an us-and-them type of education. The bigger picture of it is that it brings the community together."