Ingenuity - New Orleans City Business

Ecole Bilingue de la Nouvelle Orleansand International School of LouisianaUsing language immersion to help children achieve successA school program providing most orall of its instruction in French mightseem like a giant step backward in ahistorically French city.For the independent EcoleBilingue, however, doing this alongwith a schedule and curriculum heavilyinfluenced by the French ecole systemafforded an opportunity toadvance students in every area.In 2000, two years after the EcoleBilingue’s founding, two of theschool’s organizers, Maria Treffingerand Julie Fabian, helped establishanother learning center — theInternational School of Louisiana, astatewide public charter school.The International School offers theoption of partialimmersion in eitherSpanish or French tochildren of every backgroundand economiclevel. It also has adaunting goal — tomake the students inits kindergartenthrough 12th gradeprogram not onlybilingual but multilingual, helpingthem to achieve four languages by thetime they finish high school.Both schools are proving the basicconcept that mastery of a second languageopens the door to all types ofacademic and intellectual accomplishmentin developing minds — even atthe preschool level.“Learning another language from ayoung age stimulates all sorts of brainactivity that wouldn’t otherwise betapped,” said Julie Fabian, who servesas president of the board for EcoleBilingue. The school has 70 studentsin five classes from pre-K through firstgrade but will add a class each year toserve as a K-8 academy by the year2011. “They’ll havegreater skills in all sortsof areas like problemsolving.”Tom Crosby, headof school atInternational School,Stephane Moussiere (directeur pedagogique) with "Toute Petite,'' class of two and three-year-oldsat Ecole Bilingue20A 2004 Innovator of the YearName: Ecole Bilingue de laNouvelle OrleansLocation: New OrleansPrincipal: Julie FabianService: French immersioneducation based on theFrench system of education.PHOTO BY CHERYL GERBERAt the International School the goal is to make students multilingual.echoes Fabian’sclaims. “Researchindicates that kids wholearn a second languagein an immersionprogram developgreater cognitive abilities,”said Crosby, whopoints out that his thirdgraders scored at the60th percentile on thisyear’s Iowa Test ofBasic Skills — far higherthan average forpublic school studentsin both Orleans andJefferson parishes.The International School will addfourth grade next year and will continueto grow at a rate of one grade peryear through 12th grade. By its statecharter, 55 percent of students qualifyfor free or reduced lunched. About 60percent of the school’s 295 studentscome from Orleans Parish, and 30percent come from Jefferson. It hasthree applicants for every availablespot, even with its expanded schedule(8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.), and few studentsleave.Fabian and Treffinger wanted toprovide more options for education.But Fabian said they also saw a needfor better public schools.Establishing the public InternationalSchool was a way to move towardthat goal. Because public schoolsmust assess their students each yearusing standardized tests written inEnglish, full immersion is impossible.However, 70 percent of instructionat the International School isName: International School ofLouisianaLocation: New OrleansHead of School: Tom CrosbyService: Partial languageimmersion in a public charterschool that strives tocreate multilingual students.given in the target language,Spanish orFrench, with Englishclass and some electivesin English.At a recent conferenceof immersionprograms in Spain,Crosby learned thathis is probably theonly public school inthe United States orCanada to make multilingualism,rather than bilingualism, its goal. ForCrosby, that goal makes sense. Oncechildren develop the skills of languageacquisition, learning a second or thirdlanguage is much easier.Ecole Bilingue’s focus on Frenchlanguage and its adherence to theFrench system of instruction has alsocreated a diverse student body, withnative French speakers from Africaand Europe mingling with NewOrleanians. It also affords childrenvirtually total immersion.But both Fabian and Crosby say thestudents at their schools take pride intheir special programs. “They have asense they’re doing something special,”Fabian said. “We hope these kids willhave a bigger world, a view to a futurethat isn’t going to be just about NewOrleans. We want them to have the confidenceto move around in the world. Itcomes down to basic job opportunities.”— Lili LeGardeur