Parents of St. Isidore students know to look twice at the spelling words stuck to the refrigerator. Even the elementary words may be challenging for a parent who doesn’t speak German.
Common German words like guten tag will be snuck in among the common spelling words this year as St.Isidore’s 4th through 8th graders in Bloomingdale incorporate the German language into the curriculum.
The school’s foreign language program started four years ago with students learning Japanese. The next year all the students studied Spanish, then French and this year German.
They will sing German songs in music and study German history, geography and art. And for a half-hour each week, the children will learn basic conversational German.
“We live in a global world,” said principal Sandy Renehan, who founded the program. “We wanted exposure to a foreign language to be our goal. By getting early exposure, we feel, students can make a better choice when choosing a language later on.”
Japanese may not be repeated because of difficulty in getting language help. But starting next year, foreign language will be for 4th, 5th and 6th graders, rotating each year so that by junior high the children have had a full year of each language.
Of course, a little knowledge can be fun. The students had a Japanese tea ceremony, made pinatas in their study of Spain and last year celebrated Mardi Gras. This year they hope for a German Oktoberfest.
