World Languages at Risk in Hempfield Area
Posted on: Tuesday, 13 May 2008, 00:00 CDT
By Chris Foreman
Barbara Rebon directs her Stanwood Elementary kindergarten classes through commands such as "Levantarse!" and "Mire y escuche!"
Looking alert, the students quickly stand up, look at their Spanish teacher and listen for the impending instruction.
"Who can tell Senorita what 'vaca' means?" Rebon asks during a 20- minute session in which a vocabulary review precedes the children singing in Spanish.
Several eager students raise their hands to answer "cow."
In elementary classes in the Hempfield Area School District, world language teachers such as Rebon spend one day out of a six- day cycle teaching children about the vocabulary and culture associated with Spanish- or French-speaking countries.
Hempfield expanded its world language program to the elementary level for the 1996-97 school year, but administrators have proposed cutting the program for the past two years amid budget concerns.
World language requirements have been debated at the state level since the early 1990s, but Pennsylvania has not mandated its students to show proficiency for high school graduation, let alone elementary course work.
The proposed elimination of world language for K-5 comes less than a year after a Hempfield curriculum restructuring to ensure that a class spends an entire year with one language, rather than switching between two. In the following year, a Spanish student receives French instruction, or vice versa.
Rebon insists Hempfield is ahead of its time by offering world language courses that the state Department of Education doesn't require.
"I believe we need to remain on the course," said Rebon, who as a child in Tampa learned Spanish at home and English after enrolling in kindergarten.
"If we cut the program, everything is null and void."
But district officials proposing a 1.68-mill tax increase say they have to cover a gap between an anticipated $77.64 million in revenues and $81.17 million in expenses.
Hempfield directors, who must pass a preliminary budget by the end of the month, could vote on a proposed K-12 curriculum restructuring plan that would recommend to the state the elimination of 14 1/2 positions -- including four world language teachers -- as soon as today's workshop session.
Other proposed changes include limiting middle school art and music classes to one nine-week instructional block and swapping the activity period high school students use for clubs for more class time.
Because the state doesn't require world languages for elementary students, it doesn't keep statistics on the number of districts that offer them.
About 60 percent of Pennsylvania students graduate every year with at least two years of foreign language instruction, said Karl Girton, chairman of the state board of education.
If all students were required to pass two years of a world language, the cost to hire an additional 2,700 certified language teachers statewide would be about $114 million, he said.
"Our board has been openly supportive of world language proficiency for all students, but given the cost of that mandate, we have not moved to require that," Girton said.
"I think it's a great service for the students of the district, but again, it's a matter of setting priorities."
In the Penn-Trafford School District, board president John Willforth said he hasn't heard of much interest in an elementary language program.
However, the district is considering an expansion of its foreign language offerings through a distance-learning program.
"We haven't seen a study that there's that big of a return for the amount of money spent in the lower grades," Willforth said.
Robert Hollister, a board member of the Pennsylvania Council for International Education, said world languages are "critical for global participation," but the issue comes down to cost and what would have to be snipped from the curriculum to accommodate languages.
Unfortunately, Hollister said, when school districts are forced to make decisions, they fall back onto concerns of how they will be measured by the state.
"It's a shame that the state accountability measures don't encompass everything that's important to do for the education of our kids," said Hollister, superintendent of the Eastern Lancaster County School District.
In the Peters Township School District, in Washington County, administrators used part of a state grant to offer Spanish courses for first and second grades this year in two 30-minute sessions each week.
Next year, the grant will help the district expand the program to third grade, said Assistant Superintendent Nina Zetty.
"We're getting a lot of positive feedback from parents and teachers on the project," she said. "We're hoping, overall, to show improvement in our reading levels as a result of introducing foreign language at the elementary level."
A PTA member at Metzgar Elementary School in the Greensburg Salem School District said she understands any district's budgetary concerns but thinks a world language program is a good idea if certified teachers are available and classes fit in a school's schedule.
Andrea Shissler, a mother of three, has a sister who teaches English as a second language in Japan to children as young as 6 months old.
"I can see the benefits of starting even at a very minimal level," she said.
(c) 2008 Tribune-Review/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: Tribune-Review/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
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