Moving helps Columbia County pupils learn Spanish

About two dozen pupils of Evans Elementary School leapt off their seats to perform a YMCA-like dance -- using their arms and legs to form the Spanish vowels they shouted.

Later, the pupils in the after-school program played games and recalled Spanish words based on the facial expressions or hand motions of teacher Minerva Melendez.

For example, as Ms. Melendez rubbed her stomach, pupils yelled "hambrienta " -- Spanish for hungry.

Such visual cues are an important part of teaching a foreign language to elementary-school children, Ms. Melendez said.

"Using body language and hand motions is a much better way of teaching children at that age," she said. "It's an easier way to recall the words, and they're so much more free when they're younger to jump up and do a little dance. You'd have a hard time convincing high school students to do that."

Evans Elementary offers Columbia County's only after-school foreign language program. Now in its third year, the classes have grown from fewer than 15 to nearly 30.

Spanish also is taught at Stevens Creek Elementary, but those classes are held during the school day. Last school year Stevens Creek offered French and German in after-school programs but lost the teachers needed to keep those classes going.

Stevens Creek Principal Michelle Paschal is negotiating to start a Mandarin Chinese after-school class for the second semester while she struggles to keep the Spanish curriculum. Dwindling state funding continues to threaten the future of the daytime foreign language program at Stevens Creek, where Ms. Melendez teaches first- through fifth-graders her native language.

When Stevens Creek started the program about 10 years ago, it had five Spanish-language teachers. Now it has only two. State budget cuts forced the program to drop kindergartners this school year.

That's too bad, many educators say.

"The research indicates that between the ages of 4 and 10 is the prime window of opportunity to learn a second language," Mrs. Paschal said.

More than that, younger pupils are more open to teaching techniques, such as visual cues or dancing, that encourage conversational foreign language.

"In high schools, the students are more about learning the grammar and reading it," Ms. Melendez said. "In elementary schools, they're learning how to speak it, to hold a conversation using it.

"And don't we all learn to speak our native language first, making it easier to read and write it as we get older?"

For more than two years, James Aldridge has readily paid the $35 fee so his son, Evans Elementary third-grader Jarrod, can learn the native language of his grandmother.

"He's learning so much more at his age than I ever learned growing up," Mr. Aldridge said.

If Evans Elementary continues to find success with its program, Ms. Melendez hopes other elementary schools will consider offering foreign language options.

"Learning to become bilingual can open up so much for students, whether it's in a career or just as a well rounded person," she said.

Reach Donnie Fetter at (706) 868-1222, ext. 115, or donnie.fetter@augustachronicle.com.