Friendly City’s youngest students already learning a second language

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Foreign language classes are usually taught to middle school and high-school students, but that’s not the case in the Columbus Municipal School District.

This semester, the city’s youngest students are getting a head start.

Spanish class is nothing new for Pre-K through 5th grade at Sale Elementary School.

Now, the program is going district wide, and administrators say that tackling a second language at such a young age isn’t the only benefit of Spanish education.

Things may sound a little different when you walk into Patricia Fields’ classroom.

For this class full of four-year-olds, it’s their first year of “big school.”

It’s also Fields’ first year of teaching.

“Growing up as Mexican-Americans, we like to make people feel at home. I used to get in trouble as a little kid, Pre-K age, you didn’t say hello, you didn’t welcome them, you didn’t offer them something to drink, or anything like that, so hospitality is a big deal. I like to carry that into my classroom and even when I visit other classrooms, I try to come off warm and engaging,” said Fields.

After a warm welcome and a quick “hola”, the Spanish speaking lessons begin.

“It’s a lot of repetition and we use a lot of music and songs and dance. They really get into it and they start to link that motion with the words, so they catch on to it in class and they say good morning to me in the hallways, in Spanish, it’s so cute.”

Even though these children are still sharpening their English skills, they’re pretty enthusiastic about tackling a second language.

“It exposes them to something that’s not normal for them and it makes it normal for them. So, when they get out there, even if it doesn’t have to do with language, there like, if I can do that, I can do anything. I really like the way Dr. Labat put that because I hadn’t thought about it that way, about developing a fearlessness in them.”

Sale Elementary’s Pre-K through 5th grade students have been learning to develop that fearlessness for quite some time.

“When we moved to the Magnet Theme Concepts for our elementary schools, each of our elementary schools took on a theme and so for Sale, they went the International Studies Magnet School route and so just as a part of supporting Spanish Education as a part of that. Most international schools, even at the elementary level, offer another language,” says Sale Elementary School Principal, Kimberly Blunt.

This year, the district wanted to spread it to other classrooms.

“When we started this last week, because our first class started the week after Christmas break, all of the teachers seem to be very, very excited about being able to expose their children to Spanish.”

The classes also give students an idea of what their English Language Learner friends are going through.

“It’s just exposure and then the classes that have E.L.L. kids in them, it’s really good to create compassion and awareness because we have that conversation of you’ve got to remember these little E.L.L. kids all day, every day, they’re in a classroom, where they don’t understand the language. You only have to be in a class like that for 45 minutes out of the week.”

Fields floats around the district two days a week to teach Spanish to Pre-K classes at different elementary schools.