The following article appeared in the February 2006 edition of the Washingtonian magazine. For more information, visit the Washingtonian's website here.
Bonjour, Muddah
Learning a language is a valuable way to spend a summer, whether it's a trip overseas or an international experience here at home.
by Rebecca Dreilinger
Standing at the Great Wall of China, 14-year-old Graham Walling talked with his host father in a way he never had before. The DC-born teenager realized at that moment that a foreign language had become part of his thought pattern: "I stopped translating each word in my head. I didn't pause or hesitate. I was asked questions and gave answers in Chinese."
Several classes in Chinese and two trips to China have given Walling, now a junior at Landon school in Bethesda, a strong foundation in language.
His experience was part of a summer-abroad program offered through the all-boys private school, which also has trips to France and Spain. The program gives boys and girls grades 7 through 12 from any school a chance to live with families in Beijing, Shanghai, or Chengdu.
"At first I was afraid I wouldn't be accepted," Walling says. "I felt different because I was American, and I barely knew any Chinese."
But Walling wanted to experience a new language, a new culture, and gain some academic credit. Not only would the trip help complete his high-school language requirement, he hoped it would strengthen his college applications. In the month he spent with a host family in Chengdu, sharing their meals and taking part in weekend trips, he began to gain more than just a notation on his transcript.
Graham Walling, third from left, studied with the Landon-in-China program,
which took students to sights in Xi'an and other Chinese cities.
"I studied directly with Chinese students, and I felt like a part of their daily lives," he recalls. Although the language barrier often frustrated him, Walling's host family helped him to understand more by watching television with him and discussing current events. At first they translated what they watched and what was said. Then slowly he began to understand meanings through context.
Walling says his growth was more than just academic. "On a personal level, I built a friendship with the family-and in understanding them better, I understood the culture. Living there, I could see that our differences were so vast, yet we are all so interconnected. We're all human beings."
Walling's experience makes him part of a growing trend of youth learning languages not only beyond the walls of their classrooms but beyond the borders of their home country. In 2003-2004, the latest academic year for which figures are available, the number of US students studying abroad rose 10 percent. Although most choose European destinations, Asia and Latin America have gained popularity-including an almost doubling of student traffic to China since its SARS epidemic in 2003.
For some youths, acquiring a second language and learning about a foreign culture doesn't mean being thousands of miles from home. Washington offers several local programs.
In summer 2003, while many children his age were in nursery school, three-year-old David Huberman was already learning his "niņos" from his "niņas."
David's mother, Mariana Huberman, wanted her son to have the advantages of speaking a second language. Born in Argentina and raised in Bethesda, she values the ability to speak a second language.
"At home, I tried to speak in Spanish with my son much of the time," Huberman says. David was doing fine in school with his native English, "but I wanted him to have more-several weeks of uninterrupted exposure to daily life in Spanish."
In Washington International School's Passport to Summer, David gets to do typical summer-camp activities like games, arts and crafts, swimming, singing, sports, cooking, and reading and writing. But unlike most day camps, David and other campers do them in French, Italian, or Spanish.
A morning might involve grammar instruction and some nontraditional vocabulary lessons: In a game of charades, a student acts out a verb or imitates an object as his peers shout guesses in the foreign language. Afternoons are for more-typical horseplay as campers interact socially in their language of choice-so long as it's not English. Program director Michelle Broadie says, "The focus is on the activity. They're having good fun, it just happens to be in another language."
Going to a local language camp has its advantages. Campers work toward the same goals as Walling and other world travelers, but parents find the experience much less expensive. It's also more practical for very young students or those who have other summer plans such as a family vacation. Even though they're not going abroad, Broadie says "kids get to play with a language in a way that's real-life fun."
In addition to learning a second language, Huberman says her son flourished in other areas: "He grew socially and in his language abilities-more than in nursery school. I saw him think in more mature ways. It broadened his mind to the point where he was bursting to learn more, always asking, 'Mom, how do you say that in Spanish?'"
Although parents should not expect campers-at home or abroad-to complete their programs fully conversant in a foreign language, Broadie says they will emerge with a strong base from which to grow. Those basic tools are invaluable, she says, as students go through high school, college, and their professional lives in a world becoming increasingly multicultural and multilingual: 18 percent of the US population speaks a language other than English in the home, and one in ten people in the United States is a Spanish-speaker.
In the District of Columbia, 17 percent of residents speak another language in the home. Though the numbers in Maryland and Virgina are lower statewide-13 and 11 percent respectively-concentrations of non-English speakers are higher in the Washington suburbs. In such an international area, Broadie says, language programs at home and abroad serve to "open your mind and how you see the world.
"That's why we do it. We're making world citizens."
Former editorial intern Rebecca Dreilinger (RebeccaKD83@gmail.com) spent two summers in Spain. Now living in Bethesda, she finds her language skills useful every day.