Where is Norwalk’s World Language Program Heading?

Monday night I attended my first BOE meeting in Westport as part of my new job. One of the items on the agenda was that Middle School students there will be offered Mandarin starting next year. This will be a zero-cost program because the district is reducing the number of classes in Spanish and French.

The emergence of China as one of America’s leading trade partners as led to a national rush to learn Mandarin. One of my friends in California even sends her kids to a Mandarin immersion school.

The only concern expressed at the meeting was whether Westport could find enough qualified teachers given the demand.

That brings me to Norwalk. What are we doing to keep our world languages program relevant? Here are some thoughts from Dr. William Jassey who led Norwalk’s program until 1999.

This past year I had received multiple telephone calls from parents in search of answers as to what had happened to  Norwalk’s world language program in the last decade.  We would like to think that language progress during the days of yesterday would have led to a new decade of robust and positive transformation with the result that Norwalk would have achieved immeasurable greatness in its current world language offerings.  In fact I would have forecasted in 1999, that Norwalk would continue to maintain its number one rating in the state, and from that time on, Norwalk would have seen an equally large portrait of measurable success recognized for its rigor and vigor in its language program.

It was in 1999, when I retired as supervisor.  Norwalk had already received recognition by the Council of Language Teachers for fulfilling the needs of a multi-ethnic community, and at the same time, served as a lighthouse to propel language exemplary classrooms for surrounding communities to emulate through a series of inter-visitations.  As Norwalk’s first city-wide supervisor assigned in 1964, I realized then that the basic tool of communication was for students to immerse themselves in language and culture, and to that end, it would behoove Norwalkers to be provided with the wonderful world of languages.  How had the role of a supervisor energized the Norwalk school community to reach its zenith point in 1999?

Significantly so, Rome was not built in a day, so then it was  the responsibility of the supervisor and his Advisory Language Teachers to put the world language program on a day to day constructive path with a series of planned innovations.  In other words, the supervisor and his team of teachers had to put their head to the ground like extraterrestrial dynamos, so as to hear the vibrations of what parents wanted. 

What was the heartbeat of Norwalkers?  It was necessary to reach out and touch the community.  The supervisor had already activated his teachers to become agents of change, regardless of the cost factors involved in programmatic designs. 

With reason, the adult community had realized that benefits of a K-12 language program would override any financial burdens; the community of parents was spurred with the confidence that their children would be the recipients of language opportunities par excellence.  It was that encouragement oblivious to politics that represented the educational climate from 1964 to 1999.

Under my purview, a pragmatic approach took hold.  In 1970 the first bilingual-ESL program in Norwalk was instituted whereby a peer assistance program emerged.  It enabled a high school student to use his/her foreign language, that is, French, Greek, Spanish, German, or Italian to tutor a bilingual child either in the native language of the youngster he/she was assisting or in English. Also, the I applied for and received a federal grant of over $1 million to develop a district-wide training program accompanied with foreign language interconnections. 

In the1980s the FLES program became popular since it was an after-school program for 13 elementary schools; it was funded by parents with assistance from local corporations.  In the 1990s, the I helped Norwalk received the Foreign language Assistance Grant that led to the teaching of Japanese in grades K-5 at Rowayton and Fox Run with follow-up start-ups at Roton and later on at Ponus Ridge, thus leading to the founding and establishing of the Center for Global Studies at Brien McMahon under the my watch in 1991.

Unfortunately, without being provided a supervisor who is a linguist, classroom instruction is now at a standstill. Consequently, Norwalk’s language growth had been put on hold from year 2000, until today.  Obviously, it is not easy to pick up where the language program was in the past. 

Fortunately, Norwalk parents of today have that taste of a foreign language and do want their children to acquire it not only at an early age in elementary school, but also at a mature stage in middle and high school.  In order to maintain and exceed proficiency levels, K-12, there is need for the Board of Education to appoint a qualified supervisor as the driving and decisive force for renewal.  With the support of many Norwalk residents, now is the time to move the world language program forward.      

Dr. William Jassey is currently the Director the International Degree Program at the School of Education and Human Resources, University of Bridgeport.  From 1964 to 199 he was the District Supervisor of Foreign Language & Social Studies for Norwalk Public Schools.