Habla español?

April 5, 2005

JOEL DAVIDSON/Frontiersman reporter

WASILLA - Wendy Bowen's kindergarten/first-grade classroom looked as expected - tiny chairs, miniature coat rack, the alphabet tacked around the wall.

The kids were normal Mat-Su students, trudging into the classroom just before 9 a.m. in galoshes and winter coats.

The main difference between these students and most of the other Mat-Su elementary kids was the fact that the moment they walked into the classroom, they spoke entirely in Spanish.

Bowen's class is one of three Spanish immersion classes at Larson Elementary. For the first half of every day, the teachers and students speak only Spanish as they study language arts, reading, writing and math. It's a very different approach from poring over vocabulary words.

Jackie Cochran teaches a class of second- and third-graders next door to Bowen. Cochran said mixing Spanish in with other subjects is a more natural way to learn language.

"In a regular classroom you might just learn math. But here you're not only learning math, you're also learning Spanish," she said. "The kids get tired because they're translating and doing math. It's hard, but they are doing it."

Before class, Cochran's students hung their coats and backpacks and prepared for the day. As they did, they talked to one another, laughing and joking - all in Spanish.

Language immersion is part of an overall educational approach that seeks to saturate kids in a foreign language while they are still young and capable of picking up languages quickly.

Larson is the only school in the district with a foreign language immersion program. The program began in 2001, the year the school opened, when a group of parents approached the principal with the idea. The school hired Bowen the first year to teach a multi-age class of kindergarten and first-grade students. The program has expanded each year since then to include one extra grade level.

Bowen said roughly 70 students participate in the program, with a waiting list of others wanting to join. Each year the school draws names through a lottery system to see who gets in.

It used to be that kids from all over the borough could apply through the lottery. Due to massive overcrowding at Larson, the field is now limited to students living within the Larson school boundary area.

Speaking exclusively Spanish for half of every day can be a challenge both for teachers and students. Bowen is fluent in Spanish but not a native speaker.

"It was a very big pressure for me to be on my toes all the time and really try to give the kids the very best I could," Bowen said just minutes before her kids arrived Friday morning. "It's more challenging, but it's exciting to see what the children are gaining."

What are they gaining?

"I find the children become problem-solvers more and are a little more stimulated to find solutions for things," Bowen said. "It really does seem like their brains are more stimulated."

After teaching in both standard classrooms and Spanish immersion classes, Bowen said it can be difficult for the kids at times, especially in the early stages at the beginning of the school year.

"The little kindergartners will come in and they will just be blown away," she said when recounting the first days of school. "I had a very intelligent little boy a couple years ago that would get so frustrated. He would come in and hold his head and go, 'Would you stop speaking that language. I can't stand it.' Now, if you go listen to that child, he just has such a great accent and he understands everything that's going on."

Bowen said she hopes the school district will approve measures to extend the program into the middle school and high schools so students can continue Spanish studies as they move through school.

Connie Lutz, the district's executive director of curriculum and assessment, said the district is looking to continue the Spanish immersion program at Teeland Middle School, when the elementary kids become sixth-graders in two years.

Lutz said the district would also like to expand language immersion to include a Russian program as well.

"We support the diversity of learning world languages with our students and the immersion program is one way to do that," she said.

Bowen said the students at Larson are doing so well that later this month, a group of them are heading over to Wasilla High School to compete with high-schoolers in a Spanish spelling bee.

When asked what chance she thought the youngsters had against the high school students, Bowen spoke with confidence.

"I think they are great."

Contact Joel Davidson at 352-2266, or joel.davidson@frontiersman.com.