Deseret News, Front Page, Tuesday, November 27, 2001

Niños living la vida Español

By Elaine Jarvik
Deseret News staff writer

Babies don't need vocabulary lists. Their brains are wired to learn language, even two languages at the same time.

Most Americans, on the other hand, try to learn a second language when they're 13 or 15 or 18. Which is why most of them have an experience something like Mike Howard's. Howard learned German in junior high. Now, years later, he says he can pretty much just count to 10 in German.

Teacher Lucero Garcia, Sophie Crowley, back, Allie Rasmussen
and McKay Howard put on "Cinderella" at the Neighborhood
Spanish Pre-School in Salt Lake City.
Paul Barker, Deseret News

But Howard's 5-year-old son McKay is having a different language experience. On a recent morning, McKay jumped around the playroom at the Neighborhood Spanish Pre-School pretending to be a handsome principe while La Cenicienta tried on the glass zapato.

Before the morning was over McKay would also make tortillas, a paper mobile and a periscope. And during all of this — the Cinderella costume changes, the mixing of flour, the gluing on of paper, the positioning of the mirrors in the periscope — teacher Lucero Garcia talked nonstop in Spanish.

Garcia keeps up her steady and animated stream of Spanish for three hours, five mornings a week, repeating key phrases and words over and over. "Yo necesito el resistor. Tu necesitas el resistor? Yo necesito el resistor," she might tell the students, ages 4 and 5, as she tries to drive home her message about the need for glue.

"The focus is language development in an environment of play," explains the school's owner, Shawna Rasmussen. "The kids are completely unaware that they're learning a language."

Rasmussen started the preschool with her father, former Brigham Young University professor of child development Trevor McKee, who died unexpectedly last September. "His life's work was the language acquisition of children," says Rasmussen. In the early 1990s, her father was invited to try out his language learning system at nursery schools in Russia.

Eventually, McKee formed the nonprofit International Language Programs, headquartered in Provo.

ILP currently has American teachers in 12 schools in Russia, China and Taiwan, teaching English to 4-, 5- and 6-year-olds. The Neighborhood Spanish Pre-School, located in the Rasmussens' house in Salt Lake City, is believed to be the only preschool language immersion program in Utah.

Teacher Lucero Garcia dishes up ice cream for Allie Rasmussen,
left, McKay Howard and Sophie Crowley at Spanish immersion
preschool. The children hear and speak Spanish for three hours,
five mornings a week.
Paul Barker, Deseret News

Children who learn a second language at a young age can learn it the same way they learn their first language: through play and exploration rather than as translation, says Jared Hansen, executive director of ILP. The younger they learn, he says, the more likely they'll speak a second language with the same pronunciation and cadence of a native speaker.

The Neighborhood Spanish Pre-School promises that after 500 hours of preschool — a normal September-to-June school year — the children will be "functionally fluent" in Spanish. Hansen defines that as "peer level minus about one year." The children "wouldn't be able to talk to a high school student about cars or music," he says, but could converse about baking cakes, drawing pictures and playing games.

Children's brains are actually built for language learning, says Thomas Mathews, professor of Spanish at Weber State University. Some linguists believe that children's brains contain a "language acquisition device," and that it shrivels up by the time a child reaches puberty.

"For children, it's kind of a painless and automatic process," Mathews says about learning a second language, "where for adults, it's more academic drudgery."

Bailar!, Garcia tells 4-year-old Sophie Crowley, showing her how to twirl in her Cinderella ballgown. Perdiste el zapato, she says, pulling the make-believe glass slipper off Sophie's feet, which the principe then offers to Sophie to try on again. Perfecto, says Garcia — who, pretending to be the wicked stepmother — falls down in a fake faint.

E-MAIL: jarvik@desnews.com