by Jenna Trisko
news@thenewsleaders.com
Parents often seek out schools and extracurricular activities that can offer their children a distinctive skill set that will give them an edge in academics, career and life. The Chinese/Spanish Immersion program in the St. Cloud School District provides such a chance. During the course of their K-12 education, students learn to speak, read and write in either Spanish or Chinese.
The advantages of learning a second language have been well documented and can include improved native-language skills, enhanced brain development, higher college-entrance exam scores, expanded world view, and more.
Amber Wiese of St. Joseph, a mother of three children, learned of the program 10 years ago when her son Dominic Ballou brought home a letter from school. The letter contained information about the then one-year-old language-immersion program. She wanted to give her children a proficiency that would help better prepare them for college and to obtain successful careers.
Students begin the program in kindergarten and continue through their senior year of high school. In grades K-5, students are taught social studies, science, math and language arts in the selected foreign language. As students progress through the grades, less classroom time is spent with foreign-language instruction, but it will still continue to be a part of everyday study.
Dominic was part of the second student group to start the program. He is now heading into the eighth grade and can speak Chinese very well, but he is still working hard to master reading and writing.
“The Chinese immersion program has built a love of learning in my children,” Wiese said of the benefits of the experience.
“My classmates are like brothers and sisters,” Dominic said. “We have grown up together since kindergarten.”
Along with the school curriculum, immersion students are exposed to a variety of opportunities that include cultural picnics, potlucks, concerts and a capstone trip.
The capstone trip allows students beginning in the eighth grade to experience Spanish or Chinese culture through a two-week trip to Costa Rica or China respectively. During the trips, students visit renowned sites, enjoy an overnight stay with a host family and participate in service-learning projects. Students are required to raise money to cover their airfare and spending money.
Wiese serves on the parents’ committee for the program and is working on various fundraising activities to help the students earn the money needed for the capstone trip in the spring of 2018.
The program recently celebrated its 10th anniversary and continues to develop distinctive activities to enhance students’ breadth of knowledge and cultural exposure. The first class to start the immersion program will graduate high school in the 2018-19 school year. Just yesterday, Sept. 21, the language-immersion students and their families celebrated their first annual immersion celebration at Lake George. The event focused on honoring immersion families and students as well as embracing all types of ethnic groups. The event featured a Chinese folk-music ensemble, a Spanish quintet, salsa dancing, kung-fu lessons, face-painting, a photo booth, food trucks, cultural arts, crafts and games.
Sue Linn-Hasbrouck, the coordinator of the immersion program, said she was excited to see this event come together.
“We want(ed) to do something to honor our program,” Linn-Hasbrouck said. “This is a gem in District 742.”
To learn more about the immersion program go to https://www.isd742.org/Page/687.
To donate to the program visit www.leaf742.org/donate
Dominic Ballou, 13, of St. Joseph, grills hot dogs in the St. Joseph Meat Market parking lot Sept. 1 to raise money for the Chinese and Spanish Immersion programs.
Morgan Olmscheid, 6, of St. Joseph, waves from the Chinese Immersion float at the St. Joseph Rocks Fourth of July parade this past summer.
