Greater Greater Washington – David Alpert
“Children pick up languages very quickly…Their brains can easily pick up languages in the early years, and in much of the world, children learn multiple languages. Traditionally, US education doesn’t start other languages until middle school, when the window of best opportunity has closed. A once-a-week Spanish lesson isn’t enough either. But a few DC schools offer true immersion, where many lessons are in a language besides English…according to Vanessa Bertelli of the DC Language Immersion Project…the latest research shows that immersion helps all students, native and non-native English speaking alike…According to a longitudinal study of 85,000 North Carolina public school students, in immersion programs where close to half of students speak the partner language, students consistently outperform their peers by close to two grade levels, regardless of ethnicity, socioeconomic status and home language…in an increasingly globalized economy, more and more jobs require other languages. The fastest-growing job categories in DC include health care, where bilingual workers command higher salaries…”(more)