Sharing languages, students gain an edge

English, Spanish speakers learn from one another at Brockton school

(David Kamerman/Globe Staff) Instructor Kristen Ryan with kindergartners (from left) Tiara Miranda, Jaritza Guzman, and Jacob Wilson in a Two-Way Spanish class in Brockton.

The goal of the game for the fifth- and sixth-graders is to think of a Spanish word that begins with "m."

"Melodía," (melody) one student pitches, then hands a pink rubber ball to the next student.

"Marino," (sailor) this student says.

"Marrón," (brown) says the next.

"Mañana," (tomorrow) says the next, who is eliminated for repeating a word.

After the ball goes around the circle six times, Louisa Estrada and Cindy Mejia are the only ones left. Cindy can't think of another word, but Louisa can't claim victory because she says "marido" (husband), another word that had already been used.

Though the game ends without a winner, parents, students, and officials of Brockton's Arnone Elementary School say that nearly 200 students have made a winning decision by enrolling in the class.

The school offers an innovative bilingual language-immersion program called Two-Way Spanish, which is in its seventh year. The program integrates native Spanish-speaking students with native English-speaking students so that each can learn the languages, not only from teachers, but from each other.

According to the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington, D.C., five other districts in Massachusetts have two-way programs: Framingham, Boston, Cambridge, Chelsea, and Roxbury.

Four districts - Milton, Holliston, Mendon-Upton Regional, and Millis - offer foreign-language immersion, but nearly all the students are English speakers and aren't integrated with students who speak another language. Fall River is discussing launching a Spanish and Portuguese two-way immersion program.

According to parents and educators, two-way foreign-language immersion is giving students a rare opportunity to break down social barriers. And although test scores are likely to lag in the early grades as students grapple with grammar, vocabulary, and math in two languages, they are more likely to outperform other students on high-stakes tests in mid dle and high school, educators say.

"The global village is getting more and more connected and smaller every day, and having two languages opens the doors to cognitive, social, and economic impacts over the long term," said Chieh Li, associate professor of educational psychology at Northeastern University.

With Brockton's increasingly diverse population, the benefits can be seen in everyday life.

Sixth-grade immersion student Sarah Forrest said she wants to become a pharmacist, and as more Spanish speakers move to Brockton and other communities, she wants to speak with them not only in school and on the playground, but when she enters the working world.

"If I'm filling orders for people who are sick and there are questions, I'll be able to talk with people who don't speak English," Sarah said. "I'll be able to help people better."

Brockton's program was launched in 2002 as an addition to other state-required bilingual education programs.

"We wanted to offer our families and students another option to the bilingual programs that already existed," said Arnone's principal, Vilma Gonzalez.

Spanish was a logical choice, Brockton school officials said, because 948, or 6.1 percent, of the district's 15,500 students say they mainly speak Spanish. In addition, about 14 percent of the students have family roots that extend to Colombia, Panama, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and a host of other Spanish-speaking nations.

Miriam Almeida, who has two children in the program and has become a community facilitator and interpreter for two-way immersion, said her daughters have stunned and pleased their grandparents from Cape Verde by conversing with them not in English, but Spanish.

"At home, they usually speak English," Almeida said.

One daughter began in kindergarten, and the other in first grade. Five years later, both are on the verge of bilingual literacy.

"They read and write in math, science, social studies, and they can practice with their grandparents at home. It's really wonderful and has proven my doubts wrong," Almeida said.

Much work had to be done to implement the curriculum. Lesson plans were devised, books and materials had to be bought, native Spanish-speaking teachers were interviewed and hired; and prospective students - English-speaking, Spanish-speaking, and those who speak both - were screened for entry into the program.

Parents are told upfront they must keep their child in immersion from kindergarten through sixth grade, unless the student is seriously struggling academically. However, Spanish speakers who move into the district and must learn to read and write in English are eligible to join midstream.

Because students have to learn all subjects in both English and Spanish, essentially doubling the workload, some parents were concerned that their youngsters would be overloaded and have poor test scores. Parents also worried they would not be able to help their children with homework.

Still, Susan Forrest opted in. Forrest said she saw the program as an unprecedented opportunity for her two children - sixth-grader Sarah and Griffin, now a fourth-grader - and took a what-they-don't-know-won't-hurt-them attitude.

"It was kindergarten and they hadn't started school yet, so they didn't know how much work school was anyway. They didn't have a starting point," Forrest said.

In 2002, Two-Way Spanish began with 20 students in two kindergarten classrooms.

This school year, there are 195 students in 14 classrooms. Each grade level has two classrooms and two teachers paired together for the year. One teacher gives instruction in English, and the other teaches in Spanish; students travel from one classroom to the other. Instruction is in all subjects - reading, writing, math, science, and social studies - and lessons are taught through word games, number recitation and writing, vocabulary, and spelling assignments.

Students in kindergarten through Grade 2 are taught each subject for 30 minutes to an hour in English, then for 30 minutes to an hour in Spanish. Grades 3 and 4 receive instruction in Spanish for one week, then it switches to all English for one week. Grades 5 and 6 learn each language during a two-week stretch.

Since the program's second year, there has been a waiting list and a growing number of families have added their names to a lottery so their children can participate.

Gonzalez said the most difficult aspect of the program is finding native Spanish-speaking teachers. Another area of concern is academic performance for younger children.

In the early grades, achievement gaps between immersion students and the rest of the district, as well as between native English and native Spanish speakers, are problematic, and predictable.

Two-way students in grades 3 to 5 did not score as well as the rest of the district in all three categories of the MCAS exam in English language arts and math in 2007 and 2008. In some categories the difference was as small as 1 percent, in others as high as 25.

Kellie Jones, head of Brockton's bilingual and English as a Second Language department, said that scores in two-way programs for kindergarten to fifth grade may be expected to trail the rest of a district, because youngsters are learning double the material in the same amount of time.

By middle school, however, national studies have shown that immersion students catch up and surpass their single-language peers.

But Jones says the results don't tell the whole story. "Kids are more than a number or test scores," she said. "They have an economic, social, and cognitive stake in this.There are achievement gaps and we are monitoring those, but this has a value. At the end, they are bilingual and biliterate."

L.E. Crowley can be reached at lecrowley1@yahoo.com.