Dual language program making strides in Naperville

Maplebrook kindergartner Jenna Geisler is not a native Spanish speaker but occasionally breaks out into songs or counting in the foreign language while at home.

By fifth grade she will be fluent in it.

Geisler is one of about 92 students enrolled in Naperville Unit District 203's new dual language immersion program, which aims to teach students a foreign language at a young age when experts say they are best able to absorb it.

"It's fun to see such enjoyment coming from her learning and all the friends and different cultures and the diversity of the class," said Jenna's mother Katy.

The program consists of both a kindergarten and first-grade class at Maplebrook and Beebe elementary schools. Maplebrook's is a magnet program, welcoming students from other schools while Beebe's is for internal students.

About half the students in each class are native English speakers and half are native Spanish speakers.

Unlike many school language programs that occupy only one class period a day, students in the immersion program spend 80 percent of the day learning subjects like math and science in Spanish. The percentage of each will continue to even out each year until half the of day will be spent in each language.

"The point of this is that by fifth grade they're completely fluent academically and socially in both so they can flip back and forth between either in any academic content area, which is not something you get through a high school program," said Julie Knight, dual language coordinator for the district.

In the classroom, lessons in Spanish are Spanish only - no English translations. Instead, teachers use visual aids, hand gestures and repetition to help students understand.

Knight said it was naturally the most difficult at the beginning of the year but it didn't take students long to catch on.

"By eight days when (the teacher) was saying, 'stand up at your desks and come to the carpet for a story' (in Spanish) there was not one kid who hesitated," she said.

Desks are purposely arranged to mix the native English and Spanish speakers so they can learn from each other and Knight said it also helps that at such a young age they don't have the same fears and inhibitions older students have when learning a language.

"Levante la mano," teacher Dennise Sandoval instructed during a recent first-grade class.

Immediately, hands shot into the air for a turn at working out the math problem she had created.

Likewise, when she asked, "siete mas siete es?" students added seven plus seven without stopping to translate each word.

The exception to the Spanish-only rule is literacy classes for native English-speakers and English as a Second Language classes for the Spanish-speakers.

Dual language students also join other children in their grade for classes like art, music and physical education.

Curriculum for students in the program is the same as their peers in the all-English track. Knight said tougher concepts may sometimes need repeating but teachers in the program make time to do so and continue to use Spanish.

Although most of the day is in Spanish, Knight says the program is still the best way to instruct native Spanish-speakers, too, because it gives them a solid foundation in their own language while also teaching them English and the typical school subjects.

District 203 hopes to also offer a Mandarin Chinese dual language program next year and could also expand the Spanish offering if time, space and interest permit.

Geisler recommends the program to other families.

"It's such a wonderful thing for Naperville to have more diversity and appreciation of other cultures," she said. "And it's not just diversity or learning a second language it's an academic thing too. It opens their brain up to accept other languages."