Bilingual Families of SJ strives to immerse preschool-aged children in language learning, cultural understanding
There is a new community of learners in Haddonfield.
Now in its second year and first as a nonprofit, Bilingual Families of SJ is providing children and their parents an opportunity to learn Spanish in a weekly immersion program. The goal, however, goes beyond acquiring a second language.
“It’s about community. It’s about cultural understanding. It’s about language learning,” Bilingual Families vice president Dana Pilla said. “We really believe in our mission, which is not to just teach language, but to teach culture. We want everyone in South Jersey to feel there is a place for them to go to either interact with other like-minded Spanish speaking families or interact with other families who also value language learning and cultural understanding.”
Bilingual Families grew from a need the nonprofit’s president Diana Swidler saw in the South Jersey area. The Haddonfield resident, who is a native of Spain, started offering free Spanish lessons after the birth of her first daughter, and she saw a strong interest from the start.
“After a year, I had met enough families to understand there was a real need in the community for this service. So we started giving classes at our homes and at different libraries,” Swidler said. “In April 2016, around 22 bilingual families from many different countries founded Bilingual Families of SJ.”
Pilla, a Spanish teacher at Haddonfield Middle School, was pulled into the fold when Swidler read she was named New Jersey’s Foreign Languages Teacher of the Year. Officers Julie Schneider and Laura Thummel round out the group’s leadership.
The organization became a nonprofit in time for its 2016 fall semester in order to provide affordable classes with high standards to more children. The nonprofit charges $11 a class ($160 for the semester), which helps cover its costs and hire certified teachers to lead the classes, which are held at Haddonfield Middle School.
The classes, divided into native speakers and non-native speakers, are taught by immersion, meaning 95 percent of instruction is given in Spanish, and are fun, interactive and fast, with teachers jumping from one activity to the next in order to engage the short attention spans of the young students, ages 0 to 5. The semester-long program integrates a curriculum with a strong progression, following the state standards for world language.
“We really try to push the kids forward with their proficiency as much as we can,” Pilla, of Cherry Hill, said. “A goal of mine is to have best practice in the classroom. We’re not just going to throw together lessons; we’re going to do best practice. What makes kids learn the best?”
One of those best practices was hiring certified teacher Erika McCool. The Moorestown native, currently a long-term substitute in the Haddonfield School District, taught at an immersion school while living in Oregon, where she double-majored in elementary education and Spanish at the University of Oregon before going on to earn her master’s degree in teaching curriculum.
This is McCool’s second semester teaching with Bilingual Families, where she leads the non-native speakers class. She is a strong believer in the immersion program.
“The kids love it as long as you keep it fast-paced,” McCool said. “It creates more authentic learning for them as well.”
Swidler likened immersion learning to the following example.
“In an adult brain, you see an apple and you think, ‘It is an apple,’ and then you translate into Spanish, ‘Es una manzana.’ Young brains can immediately relate the picture with the new sound in Spanish,” Swidler said. “That is the amazing and innate ability of a young brain. This ability is being wasted if children don’t start a foreign language at a very young age.”
It is not only the children being immersed in the language. Pilla pointed out the parents, who attend the classes with their kids, are immersed as well.
“The parents are getting immersed along with their child. As you’re teaching the children, the parents are learning, and then in turn the parents can be the model at the home,” Pilla said.
So, why Spanish?
“Spanish is the second most spoken language in the United States and the third most spoken worldwide,” Swidler said. “Therefore, being able to speak Spanish opens the door to more and better professional opportunities here and abroad. Not only that, learning Spanish gives you access to a wide array of amazing cultures.”
Many of the students help to bring these cultures into the Bilingual Families classrooms, too. Participating families hail from countries around the world — Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Chile and Norway among them.
And even though Bilingual Families teaches Spanish, Swidler points out that learning any second language brings children numerous benefits.
“Children become more tolerant, more emotionally intelligent. They get better social skills and they get a better global understanding,” Swidler said. “Finally, according to very reputable scientific sources, children that master in more than one language face higher brain processing demands that lead to an increase in brain activity.”
This increase, Swidler explained, improves the brain’s “executive function,” the system responsible for problem solving, planning, flexible switching, focusing, multi-tasking, etc.
The benefits, Swidler said, don’t stop there. Early exposure to different languages also influences neural processing later in life, even after the language is no longer used. And recent studies indicate speaking more than one language can reduce the impact of mental diseases as people age.
Working as a semester program — and not drop-in classes — is important in building a community of learners, Pilla said. The group also hosts special events, like a party at the end of the spring semester and a gathering at Christmas, to further this sense of community. The activities also give the non-native speakers a chance to see native speakers in action.
“I feel like it really makes the children feel like what they’re doing is for a purpose,” Pilla said.
Swidler is hoping to grow Bilingual Families. Right now the group is considering adding a class just for babies this September, and there may be camps this summer. They would love to see communities grow for other languages, too, and provide a service on their website to connect with other bilingual families.
The nonprofit’s leaders are proud of what they’re building.
“We want children to learn the language to apply it to their lives, to their careers. We want to show this idea of cultural understanding and integration,” Pilla said. “So it’s important for us that children are exposed at a young age. It spurs them forward. It’s like the pathway of becoming proficient in a foreign language.”
To learn more about Bilingual Families, visit www.bilingualfamiliesofsj.org or email info@bilingualfamilies.org.
