WORCESTER, Mass.- The world language department in Worcester Public Schools has grown to fit the needs of the community throughout the past few years.
During the 2019-2020 school year, 25,044 students were enrolled in the Worcester school district. The National Center for Education Statistics says 14.4% of Worcester students speak English less than well, 27.3% speak English very well and 58.3% only speak English.
The world language selections are decided by individual school districts. Jacqueline Reis, the media relations coordinator for Massachusetts Department of Secondary and Elementary Education (DESE), says the selections often mirror the majority of the students.
“The guiding principles included in the 2021 Massachusetts World Languages Curriculum Framework advise districts to provide language course offerings that reflect the lives and experiences of their students,” Reis said in a recent email.
In Worcester, 22% of the population are Hispanic or Latino. This determined a larger need for an educational experience for students who speak both English and Spanish.
Students have the option to begin learning a foreign language of their choosing as early as middle school and are required to complete world language credits in high school. However, Worcester elementary schools are now developing programs for students to begin earlier.
“There may be occasional opportunities for different lessons at the elementary levels and now we have the dual language programs,” Molly McCullough, a member of the Worcester school committee, said in an interview last week. “So there are some elementary students that are in dual language programs where they learn another language from the time they start kindergarten.”
As the dual language program became more popular, the Worcester school district thought it would be beneficial to develop a separate school for students who want an education in both English and Spanish.
La Familia opened this year at the former St. Stephen School on Grafton Street to provide K-6 students a learning experience where they are immersed in both Spanish and English.
“The dual-language program was becoming so popular and there was an opportunity to use space at a former school building that was available that was not at the public school’s building so we were able to create the whole program and we thought it made a lot more sense where instead of students being in one wing of the school,” McCullough said.
Michelle Huaman, the World Language Liaison at Worcester Public Schools, says it’s important that students voice their opinions on what world languages should be offered, especially when it regards their culture.
“Students like choice and so it is really important that we are able to offer them more than one language,” Huaman said during an interview on Thursday. “It’s also important because of our diverse community that we have so many students that are speakers of different languages, especially Spanish, that we are sure to offer them a language that fits their needs.”
For students who are surrounded by Spanish at home, but do not understand how to read or write, Worcester offers courses to better their proficiency in the language.
“We’ve worked really hard over the past few years to really build up the curriculum for our Spanish for heritage speakers,” Huaman said. “So, besides Spanish as a world language course, we also offer Spanish as a heritage course for those students.”
The course for heritage speakers is separate from the traditional Spanish world language class.
“The heritage language classes are world language classes so the students are learning to read, write, speak and understand in Spanish, but we're also aligning with the AP Spanish themes,” Huaman said. “So students are kind of preparing themselves to take on the rigors of an AP class when they get into their upper levels.”
While there is a strong demand for world language courses in Spanish, McCullough says there are other options for students to pick from.
“So right now there are different levels of French, Spanish, Chinese and then ASL, American Sign Language. Those are the languages that are offered as a part of world languages,” McCullough said.
The four languages offered in the Worcester school district are some of the most popular languages in school districts across Massachusetts.
While local school districts also vote on the languages provided for student education, Reis says the most commonly taught languages in the state, in order of frequency, are Spanish, French, Latin, Chinese, American Sign Language, Italian, German, Portuguese, Arabic, Japanese and Russian.
McCullough says Latin used to be an option for foreign languages in Worcester.
While school districts look to expand their world language departments, often there are not enough teachers in the area to teach specific languages.
“It’s difficult to find language teachers nationwide, but especially here in the district,” Huaman said. “There’s been courses that we've been unable to offer because we just don’t have enough language teachers available to us.”
While student interest is taken into consideration, some school districts are not able to always meet the students' wants.
“If the students are interested in learning a certain language, but if you’re not able to fit that into the schedule, or if there aren’t teachers available to teach it, that’s not something that really is achievable,” McCullough said.
Massachusetts developed the Seal of Biliteracy program about four years ago to recognize students who attain high proficiency and academic level in both English and another world language, according to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
“Worcester jumped in right away because we do live in a diverse community and we’re really proud of all the languages that are represented by our students,” Huaman said. “So this is a way to really highlight and celebrate the many languages spoken by our students and also by the hard work from our world language department, getting students ready to really demonstrate their proficiency at the end of senior year.”
The Worcester world language department strives to see students graduate with a high proficiency in a secondary language. Huaman says their school district makes sure it is a possibility for all students.
“Our goal really is to graduate students multilingual,” Huaman said. “Here in Worcester Public Schools, we know that's a possibility. It’s a possibility through our world language, through our students who continue from seventh through twelfth building their proficiency and it's also a possibility for students coming in newcomers to the community that are strengthening their English that they truly can leave here multilingual.”