Exposure to other languages will open doors to opportunity

I would like to respond to Laura Banks' letter published Aug. 28, "Good English is enough." I am a teacher in a Chinese immersion school in the Davis School District. I also have taught in immersion schools in Egypt, Turkey and Japan.

The Utah State Office of Education closely monitors elementary schools that participate in the immersion program. These schools offer a program for parents to enroll their child in at the kindergarten or first grade level. The rest of the students are not required to "opt out."

English is taught in all of our schools. Most of the schools follow a 50-50 program in that the children spend a half day with the English teacher, who usually only teaches language arts (reading, writing, and grammar), while the language teacher teaches the rest of the required subjects. These teacher-pairs work in tandem. All the teachers in the program are required to get extra training. Much of the programming comes from the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) at the University of Minnesota, and McGill University in Montreal, Canada — the leading university in the world on language acquisition research. Every school has a sister school in the United States that has several years in the program, and a sister school in a country that speaks the target language.

From a district standpoint, I can only state what I know goes on in Davis District. Our programs begin in kindergarten. The language teachers are either native speakers or teachers who have spent a good deal of time living abroad speaking the target language. They are required to have teaching credentials, and I believe, must pass a language competency test. The English counterparts are teachers with many years of teaching experience. Although I am not teaching in the immersion program at my school, I have total confidence in the four teachers who do. I observe them on a daily basis. Enrollment for the immersion program begins in January, and so far, my principal has had no problems filling slots. Parents want their children to learn a second language.

Why Chinese, Spanish and French? The most common world languages are in order, Chinese (Mandarin), Spanish and then English. French is the first language of many people in Europe, Africa and the Caribbean island nations. Chinese, Spanish, French, along with English, Arabic and Russian are the main languages of the United Nations, and the most used in texts and the Internet. We know that language acquisition is easier for young children. I grew up speaking both English and German. I am also fluent in Arabic, and semi-fluent in Turkish and Japanese. When I travel abroad, I have no problems communicating with people. I can also pick up other languages fairly quickly. Knowing a second language has been very useful.

Will these children use this language later in life? Of course they will! I grew up in Idaho with an English-speaking father and a German-speaking mother. I have used German all my life, and not just abroad. I have translated parent conferences in Arabic here in Utah. I can find groups in Salt Lake who speak the same languages. Once exposed to a language, the opportunity to use it will always arise.

Laurie Williams of Salt Lake City is a doctoral candidates researching the language immersion programs in Utah.