Teaching the tools of foreign language

WALTHAM - Students at a local parochial school next fall will begin studying Spanish, taking steps toward entering a larger world by becoming bilingual. "I feel that children learn language in their early years," said Our Lady Principal Chandra Minor. "It also instills in them an appreciation for the global world. I think we really have to be attuned to language."Minor said the school decided on teaching Spanish after surveying the community and speaking with parents and students."Spanish was the language that they could most readily use at this point in time," she said. "There is a potential for other languages in the future."

Our Lady's pastor, the Rev. Sean McCarthy, said having younger students learn the language benefits not only the students, but to the community as a whole. "It's an important component," he said, "because our culture now is completely multi-lingual. Waltham has a growing Latino community."

Spanish is now taught to seventh- and eighth-graders.Three teachers will run the program, Minor said, with one in pre-kindergarten, one in kindergarten through fifth grade and one teaching middle school students. All three teachers, whose names have not yet been released, are bilingual themselves.

McCarthy said teaching foreign languages to students at such an early age is unusual. "It's pretty uncommon in any school, let alone a Catholic school," he said. "And we're an uncommon school."

St. Jude School, Waltham's other Catholic elementary and middle school, recently implemented a foreign language program, but not for students younger than sixth grade. "We implemented the junior high Spanish program in the fall," said St. Jude Principal Sister Katherine Martin. There are no plans to teach foreign language to elementary students, she said.

Our Lady's Minor said teaching Spanish is part of a series of current and proposed ideas to make the school unique. "The Spanish just broadens their educational field," she said. The school also has a program that allows students who are excelling in certain subjects to take course at higher grades, she said.

"This school is on the cutting edge to everything we're doing here," Minor said. A reading and a writing coach provides lessons for faculty members, who then do lessons and get feedback on their own instruction. Minor said the faculty-coaching, called the Collaborative Coaching and Learning, is vital for both the teachers, as well as the students in the long run.

"Unless you invigorate the faculty, unless their skills are fine-tuned, it's not going to translate into good instruction," she said. "The benefactors of this professional development are the children, and that's the bottom line." "Our motto is, we're a school on the move. And our goal is to be the best elementary school, period. And we're putting everything in place to get there."

Matt Perkins can be reached at 781-398-8009 or at mperkins@cnc.com.