Can We Talk? Language classes taking on new accents in Central Jersey schools

• Several schools in Central Jersey are now offering Chinese, Arabic and Hindi
• Thousands of people of Asian backgrounds have come to the region over the past several years
• Traditional languages such as German have seen a decrease in enrollment in some schools

Some parents are dumbfounded and upset with the decision made by Watchung Hills School District to limit upper level German courses to an online program due to dwindling enrollment.

They're calling on the school board to reverse the decision and proposed combining the upper level classes to reach the minimum required for attendance.

"Fundamentally, we believe that living languages need to be practiced and spoken in a living environment," four parents wrote to the school board in June.

But like the communities that make up the districts throughout Central Jersey, the world languages offered in schools across the region are shifting.

According to a 2005 study from the state Department of Education, the most popular language being taught in New Jersey schools, as well as across the nation, was Spanish. But more recently, this statistic has changed, as communities have become more diverse and students take up interest in languages used in international business and other applications.

"Throughout history, the popularity of studying different languages waxed and waned," Nathan Lutz, vice president and media coordinator for Foreign Languages Educators of New Jersey, said. "In New Jersey, we have seen a rise in Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, and Urdu programs."

While the enrollment in the German program shrinks at Watchung Hills High School in Warren, the Chinese program continues to attract more students. Chinese has been taught at the school in some form for around 25 years, starting as a program broadcasted through satellite in its early days. For the past 15 years, though, Chinese has been a course consistently included in the school's curriculum — and it has been steadily growing.

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"Chinese is becoming popular," said Brad Commerford, world language supervisor and Spanish teacher at Watchung Hills High School. "We're a regional high school and one of our sending district schools has increased their Chinese program; they've made it a sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade program." Students in Warren Township, Somerset County, have this program; the high school has students from Watchung and Green Brook in Somerset County and Long Hill in Morris County.

He said that the increase in popularity of Chinese language courses also has to do with the demand of the community.

Between 2010 and 2014, Watchung Borough saw an increase of more than 100 Chinese people moving to the area, according to census data. In 2010 there were roughly 187 Chinese people living in the area, compared to the 318 recorded in 2014.

Somerset County as a whole saw an increase of roughly 900 Chinese people over the same time period, and an increase of more than 5,000 Asian Indians moving into the county.

"We have a very large Asian population, so we have lots of heritage speakers taking Chinese," Commerford said. "It used to be that way for German 30 years ago."

Decades ago, German immigrants settled in the Watchung Hills area for its farmland, so the demand of learning German in the schools was higher than it is now, he said.

"As generations of people move out of one district and younger generations of people move in with children who aren't quite through the system yet, those needs are going to change in any school district. It doesn't make a difference where you are, that will change," he said. "At any public school district, you're subject to the community giving you their input of what they would like to see."

Changes across the state

Multiple factors are driving the language classes changes, according to Lutz of the Foreign Languages Educators group.

"Part of this is due to the national effort to turn out proficient speakers of these languages. It is also due to the diversity of New Jersey's population, which has large numbers of immigrants and second-generation and third-generation families who speak Hindi and Urdu, for instance," he said.

The Center for Applied Linguistics found that the amount of U.S. students taking German between 1997 and 2008 dropped from 24 percent to 14 percent, and Latin and Japanese had similar drops. Chinese, however, quadrupled in that time period and continues to grow.

Lutz, who also serves as the French teacher and global learning coordinator at Kent Place School in Union County, said many private schools have seen similar, if not higher trends, with implementing new foreign languages.

Kent Place School starts formal instruction of Mandarin Chinese in sixth grade with an after-school enrichment option available for children as young as kindergarten, he said, adding that Rutgers Preparatory School in the Somerset section of Franklin has offered Japanese for years and now also offers Arabic. Delbarton, a private school in Morris County, also offers Arabic, and Pingry School in Bernards and Wardlaw-Hartridge in Edison offer Chinese.

Watchung Hills High School, which has more than 2,000 students enrolled, is now offering sign language as an option since the state Department of Education now considers it as world language. As for its Chinese classes, the school offers lessons in traditional Mandarin Chinese as well as a simplified version of the language, which features less complex characters.

"In recent years, there has been a growing interest in American Sign Language, and a small but growing number of schools are incorporating languages more commonly spoken throughout the world, such as Mandarin Chinese or Hindi," according to a 2013 state School Boards Association survey.

Starting young

Some schools are starting students in Chinese at a young age. Hillsborough Township has a Chinese program for elementary school students from kindergarten to grade four.

Preschoolers and kindergartners at Kangaroo Kids Child Care and Learning Center students in Branchburg have weekly lessons in Mandarin Chinese from Cynthia Yu as a part of their regular curriculum. Yu began teaching in 2012 and teaches the language largely through song and cultural programs, said Kathy Feigley, the school's director.

"We also do Spanish but we had requests for this from parents and decided to add it to the program," she said, noting that research shows that learning multiple languages at a young age aids children's overall learning development.

"The world is a becoming a more open place, and we hope that learning about other cultures also helps make it a better world," she added.

Virginia Santoro, supervisor of the world language program of Edison Township schools, said that schools could be starting students in languages at a younger age to develop a global mindset.

"I think a lot of these languages came out of interest within the community," she said. "Statewide, the trend is more towards languages that may be used for business internationally, particularly with Mandarin."

Edison Township High School offers courses in Hindi and Mandarin Chinese.

Middlesex County has also seen an increase in Asian Indian people living in the county over the past several years, according to census data.

In 2010 there were 98,260 Asian Indians living in Middlesex County. Four years later there was 114,680. Over the same time period, the Chinese population deceased by roughly 100 people to 29,572.

In Edison, over a fourth of the township's 101,051 population is Asian Indian. The Asian Indian population has increased 18 percent to 31,588 from 2010 to 2014. The Chinese population also went up nearly 1,000 people to 8,020.

"A lot of it is based on community interest, the community population and the community needs," Santoro said.

Staff Writer Nick Muscavage: 908-243-6615; ngmuscavage@gannettnj.com