School giving kids leg up on languages

Ali Bromley-Dulfano was nervous. The Morningside Elementary third-grader was about to perform two plays, which meant two different sets of lines. But the catch was she had to memorize and recite her lines in two languages.

This week, Morningside foreign language students held a Foreign Language Extravaganza that showcased what they had learned in their yearlong early-morning foreign language classes.

The students performed four plays — in French, Chinese and two in Spanish. There was cultural dancing and folklore, and the scripts were written entirely in the respective languages.

The foreign language program was the brainchild of University of Utah assistant professor Isabel Dulfano, who has children who attend the school.

She felt it was important to offer students the opportunity to learn new languages young so that they will have a head start later on in junior high and high school.

The program is run through the PTA and offers Chinese, Spanish and French classes to students in all grades, kindergarten through six, at the school.

Courses are taught before school by foreign language students from the U., who are looking to get some teaching experience, for a fee of around $75 a year.

Dulfano said it gives kids a jump on developing appreciation for cultural differences and similarities, and helps provide tools to better prepare them for the real world.

"We have to start at a very young age," said Dulfano. "We live in a multicultural world, and the North American model isn't the only one out there . . . they need to develop an appreciation for cultural differences and similarities."

Terry Hilton, a parent at the school, said the program helps kids become more familiar with their own language while giving them a basis for other languages. Plus it gives children a little bit more confidence in being able to speak them, said Hilton.

None of the students are near fluent.

"When you are only being exposed to the language one or two hours a week there are very limited proficiency gains, but the students who go on to junior high tend to do much better in their language classes than those who have had absolutely no training," said Dulfano. "Also there are studies that prove that if you do some work with foreign languages it will help in other areas of academics."

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