The job description for a homeschool Spanish teacher has many of the requirements one would expect. The candidate must be fluent in Spanish, love working with children, be willing to work with all kinds of learners, communicate well with parents and students, and have great enthusiasm for teaching. The Home School Assistance Program (HSAP) classes…

During the 2010-2011 school year, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) piloted the After-School Global Language Opportunity Benefiting All Learners (GLOBAL) program for 12 weeks at eight different school sites. This school year the program expanded to 25 weeks and 11 sites. GLOBAL is an approach to learning that allows students to develop basic…

The Atse Kituwah Academy (New Kituwah Academy) houses the new Cherokee immersion school in Cherokee, North Carolina. Cherokee is located on the Qualla Boundary in the mountains of the western part of the state, the contemporary homeland of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI). In 2005, a comprehensive study of the health of the Cherokee…

Maloney Interdistrict Magnet School (MIMS) is the only elementary school in Waterbury that has a world language program and is one of only two elementary Japanese programs in Connecticut. In the past 15 years, more than 1500 students have participated in its Japanese Language and Culture (JLC) Program in grades Prekindergarten through 5th. The JLC…

This article describes three big programs from Delaware where the less commonly taught languages find their home in Delaware elementary schools. Odyssey Charter School, located in Wilmington, is one of the very few Greek-language-focused public schools in the nation. The school began in 2006 as a Greek immersion program that concentrated on the…

The impetus to begin Bilingual Buds came about six years ago when the author, pregnant with twins and commuting into New York City, was reading about the numerous cognitive benefits for children of acquiring a second language early in their lives. She was surprised to learn that even by the age of six months, children begin to lose the ability to…

Planning to start or expand a K-8 critical language program? Looking for support in doing so? There "may" be help at the federal level for great ideas and strong programs. While there have been various pools of federal dollars available to support world language programs for a number of years, the federal government's interest in…

In this article, the author describes her experience of teaching Mandarin Chinese at Stopher Elementary School in Louisville, Kentucky. Through growing and learning with her students, the author has become a firm believer in the importance of early childhood language acquisition and a passionate advocate for world language education.

The Dearborn Public Schools, with 18,300 students, is located in the Detroit urban area with the largest concentration of Arabic-speaking people in the United States. In order to prepare the students for the 21st century skills and global awareness and in response to parents' requests, the author in collaboration with the school principal and…

When designing a language program, it is often difficult to create a workable balance between a desired ideal and the realities imposed by limited resources. Ultimately, the task is to make the best use of the available materials within the allotted time frame by drawing on the creativity and expertise of the staff. The following is a brief…