Get smart about Spanish

In Lourdes Onate's classroom, the Spanish comes fast and furious (muy rapido), the accents are impeccable and there is no English spoken. Nada.

The kids? Oh, they're 5 and 6.

At J.Y. Joyner Elementary School in Raleigh, every child, from kindergarten through the fifth grade, receives Spanish instruction every day, five days a week, 45 minutes per day.

On Wednesday afternoon, I stopped by Joyner and sat in on Onate's kindergarten and first-grade classes after reading about the State Board of Education committee's decision to drop a proposed high school graduation requirement of two years of foreign language.

It occurred to me, listening to the kids chatter away, that the State Board committee couldn't have gotten this one more upside-down or backward.

In an increasingly bilingual world, the board is backing away from a basic tool every kid is going to need -- Spanish language -- when what we should be doing is pumping up foreign language instruction at all levels.

But particularly in the earliest years.

It's not that high school is too late. You've heard the notion that children can learn a new language only during a narrow window of time. When that closes at age 10 or 12, the notion goes, the window is nailed shut.

That isn't true.

Any of us can learn a new language. I tried my darnedest in my 30s.

But there is research that shows that the earlier you learn a language, the easier it is to learn. (I can attest to that, too.)

One study out of England shows that learning a second language -- especially at a young age -- actually creates denser gray matter in the left inferior parietal cortex.

Translation: It boosts the brain.

That seems like something the Board of Education might want to investigate.

Unfortunately, schools like Joyner, which capitalize on early language learning, are rare. In most schools around the state, the kids begin a smattering of Spanish, or other language, no earlier than the fourth grade.

The instruction is rudimentary and occurs once a week. "D-nde está el bano?" (Where is the bathroom?)

By the time the kids get it, most are old enough to be embarrassed at not knowing how to pronounce the words correctly, or string together the phrases.

Heck, they're embarrassed at having to try. That's part of being a pre-teen.

So why not get them started when, as Joyner Principal Chris Knott put it, "the kids are wide open to learning"?

Many classrooms already have built-in tutors: Spanish-speaking children who are in a sink-or-swim immersion English program the rest of our kids simply call school.

The kids in Onate's class are being well-prepared for a bilingual world, as I found out.

During a break in class, I called upon those two semesters of Spanish I took a decade ago to talk with one of the firstgraders.

After "Como esta usted?" (How are you?) I balked.

If only I'd started my studies sooner ...