At P.S. 133, Kindergarten Adopts a New Tradition

Kindergarten is about to go bilingual.

Next September, a dual-language French-English program will launch at on Fourth Avenue and Eighth Street, putting 12 francophone and 12 anglophone children in a class together. The children will join together into one multi-lingual, multi-cultural class, where they will spend half their day immersed in French, the other half immersed in English.

At P.S. 58, in nearby Carroll Gardens, a similar dual-language French program was launched in 2007 with great success. Next year the school will offer two such kindergarten classes, as well as classes in grades one through four, but there is demand for even more, said P.S. 133's principal, Heather Foster-Mann.

Foster-Mann said she first realized that parents in her school zone were interested in a bilingual education program when Pre-K parent Jean-Cosme Delaloye, who is French-speaking, came to her with the suggestion this past May.

"One of my Pre-K parents told our parent coordinator he had some ideas and wanted to speak with me about them," Foster-Mann said. "We're a small school, so it's all about talking to parents and finding out what their needs are. He showed me that there were parents who were interested in a dual-language program, so I made some phone calls."

"Having parent support behind this has really propelled it," she added.

Children for the dual-language class will be selected through a lottery in which children already attending pre-K at P.S. 133 and coming from the P.S. 133 school zone will receive priority. Francophone children will first be assessed for basic language skills such as their ability to follow basic instructions or talk about a book in French.

Thus far, parents from Bay Ridge to Fort Greene have shown interest, according to Delaloye. When he realized that his now four year-old son had slim chances of attending P.S. 58, because he lived outside that school's zone, he reached out to other parents in an attempt to rally interest for a program in his own zone.

"I sent out an e-mail to parents to see if they were interested," Delaloye said. "Within three days I got about 40 parents."

Parents interested in P.S. 133's dual-language program can attend an information session at the school in January, which will touch upon curriculum, dual-language learning, daily schedules, the selection process, and more.

A recent general open house at the school turned out more than 50 parents, Foster-Mann estimates, many of whom came from beyond the school zone.

The interest for such programs, it seems, reaches far beyond Park Slope, and understandably so. Not only will children gain proficiency in more than one language and acquaintance with more than one culture, but, according to educational studies utilized by the Center for Applied Linguistics, such dual-language instruction also enhances a child's creativity and capacity for critical and analytical thinking.

"Most people agree that for kids it's a huge advantage to learn other languages at an early age," Delaloye said. Having grown up in Switzerland, which has four official languages, he can speak from experience.

But for a more a concrete look at how children from dual-language programs perform, parents may want to follow test results for the upcoming school year from P.S. 58.

 "Children who are testing this school year at P.S. 58 have been at it for about four years," said Foster-Mann, "so it will be interesting to see what results are."