Education
Guide
www. ReporterNewspapers. net
FALL 2013
Junior
Achievers
Local students win
national JA competition
PAGE 20
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More schools push early language learning
From left, Nicholas
Thompson,
Madame Tiphaine
Chauvel and Jacob
Wolf go over a
lesson in French
at the Atlanta
International
School’s
Early Learning
Center in Sandy
Springs. Two years
ago, the school
began offering a
“full-immersion”
preschool program
for 3 and 4 year
olds, with all
activities taught in
German, Spanish
or French.
PHIL MOSIER
Mastering another language gives students ‘an edge in life’
BY MELISSA WEINMAN
melissaweinman@reporternewspapers.net
Just a few weeks into the school year, Ashford Park El
ementary School Principal LaShawn McMillan said she
watches in wonder as her kindergarten students count
and sing songs in German.
“I’m just amazed at what the children have been able
to do already,” McMillan said.
This year, the Brookhaven elementary school began
a “dual-immersion” language program in which kinder
garten students spend half of their school day learning
in German.
Ashford Park is one of six elementary schools that re
ceived state funding this year to implement dual-immer
sion programs, with a goal of helping students become
fluent in a foreign language by the fifth grade.
Students typically don’t walk into their first foreign
language class until middle or high school. But educators
are beginning to prioritize learning a second language
much earlier in life.
Kevin Glass, headmaster at Atlanta International
School in Buckhead, said research has found that young
children are much better equipped to learn a new lan
guage than adults.
“Every human baby is born with ... the ability to
sound every language on God’s earth,” Glass said. “If you
don’t stimulate those young brains, you’re not going to
get as much neuroplasticity, you’re not going to get those
synaptic connections.”
Glass said schools have been “notoriously slow” to ap
ply this knowledge.
“Adults often find it really, really difficult to learn an
other language because their ears have been tuned to only
the sound of their mother tongue,” Glass said. “Re-tun-
ing those ears becomes more difficult the older we get be
cause we lose neuroplasticity.”
Glass said Atlanta International School has offered
a dual-immersion curriculum in German, French and
Spanish for 28 years. Once the students leave elemen
tary school, they may continue their language studies
through middle and high school with the International
Baccalaureate program, Glass said.
Two years ago, Glass said, the Atlanta International
School began offering a “full-immersion” preschool pro
gram for 3 year olds and 4 year olds. In that program,
all preschool activities are taught in French, Spanish or
German.
The program has been a “phenomenal success” be
cause the young children are able to learn so quickly,
SEE STUDENTS, PAGE 14
