Parents respond

Our community outreach is well underway and I wanted to share a few of the positive responses that we’ve received from families.

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You came at just the right time. Since my son was 6 months I have been thinking about where he was going to kindergarten. Just last week after much research, I had narrowed it down to a charter school and I wanted him to learn French and German.
I visited your website on this past Saturday.
I am so excited about the school and this opportunity for my son.
I told my in-laws and my family about Brysen’s new school.
Everyone is excited. My in-laws live in St. Thomas, Missouri (a small town, population 1,000 where they are the only blacks in town and unrelated to anyone else).
St. Thomas, Missouri is talking about the school.
My family back home in New Orleans is talking about the school.
I was at a birthday party this week with my neighbors ( I live in Benton Park West) and was talking about the school.
I will be at a sorority event next week and will talk about Brysen’s future.

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Other language immersion schools in the US

The Center for Applied Linguistics’ Directory of Foreign Language Immersion Schools includes 263 language immersion schools, 181 of which are elementary schools. The CAL directory focuses on public schools (traditional or charter), which means that when you consider the private and parochial schools with language immersion programs, there are over 300 such schools in the country. This doesn’t include two-way immersion and bilingual programs that target native and heritage speakers of a language. Here are few other language immersion schools inpo:

Traditional Public

Milwaukee German Immersion School (MGIS) Milwaukee, WI (German)

L’étoile du Nord, St. Paul, MN (French)

Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland (Mandarin, French, Spanish)

Post Oak Elementary, Lansing, MI (Mandarin)

District Magnet

Smith Academy, Charlotte, NC (French, Spanish, German, Mandarin)

Inter-American Magnet School, Chicago, IL (Spanish)

Horace Mann Dual Language Magnet, Wichita, KS (Spanish)

Public Charter

Académie Lafayette, KCMO (French)

Albert Einstein Academies, San Diego, CA (German & Spanish)

Lakes International Language Academy, Forest Lake, MN (Spanish)

International School of Louisiana, New Orleans, LA (French & Spanish)

Yu Ying Charter School, Washington D.C. (Mandarin)

German immersion schools

When I was asked in April 07 by the Dean of the Center for International Studies at UMSL if I would like to participate in a founding board for a St. Louis language immersion school I was downright thrilled by the idea.

While working for the German Goethe-Institut and the cultural branch of the German Foreign Office, ZfA, I had just begun to work together with this rather new type of school. We had held a first conference of German immersion schools of the US in Portland, Oregon, and I had learned about wonderful and thriving schools and start-up projects, mostly initiated by parent groups.

While it is sad (but true) to say that we find German programs at high schools in a downward movement these immersion schools provided growing numbers of students of all ages.

I have been a foreign language teacher myself for many years and also have taught German as a foreign language for six years in Spain. I know of the importance of starting early with foreign language education – and here in St. Louis, there was just the right environment for such an undertaking.

When I started my professional career I studied languages and – almost logically – went into education. Today languages are not only a field for future teachers, but also and in the main place an additional qualification young people need to be able to compete in our global world. Our goal should hence be to provide them with this additional skill that might make the difference in getting a good job.

The project of a language immersion school in the city of St. Louis is an ambitious goal – but it can mean “future” for hundreds of kids who will be able to choose learning one or more foreign languages at an age where learning is just natural to them. I am very glad to be part of that project and to be able to contribute whatever there can be provided by the German institutions I represent.

Enthusiastically
Gert Wilhelm
German Language Consultant
Goethe Institute
Central Agency for Schools Abroad (ZfA)