Bilingual program thriving in Central Jersey

Melissa Edwards for The Mirror

Salta! Jump Into Spanish will host an evening of dance, music and stories at the Highland Park library on Thursday, April 17th. This program is geared to families with late preschoolers, kindergarten and first graders.

Progressive school districts, including Highland Park’s, have stepped up their efforts to provide Spanish or other foreign languages starting in elementary school, in part to help their students compete and thrive in the global economy. But experts say that mastering a second language requires more than what a student can learn in a traditional classroom.

Programs like Salta! Jump Into Spanish in Edison, could be the answer for some families.

The Spanish program, in its fifth year, offers daily Spanish classes for students between the ages of 18 months and 10 years old.

Jackie Sanin, founder of Salta!, said she started the language learning program when her own daughter at four years old demonstrated that she did not understand the beauty or value of speaking and understanding Spanish.

Sanin, who is of Cuban heritage, had gone to the library and checked out a Spanish children’s music tape to play in the car. While Sanin was enjoying the musical sounds of her heritage, her daughter, who is both Cuban and Colombian, was in tears. Sanin said she could see that her daughter was growing up without an appreciation for her own culture or language.

"There needed to be a program that taught children the beauty of Spanish... all children," Sanin said.

While one reason to support your child learning Spanish may be because you are of Hispanic heritage, Spanish is also becoming the most spoken language in America. All Americans can benefit from learning this language, said Sanin.

Juan Saborido, a Spanish professor at Middlesex County College, also cites the increasing importance of being able to communicate with the Latin community, in America and abroad.

His college courses are filled with students of all cultures and nationalities who are realizing the value of mastering Spanish, he said. Students are seeing how Spanish can benefit them in fields that include medicine, teaching, and the finance industry.

"If you know only English, you can go half way around the world," Saborido said. "If you know Spanish and English, you can go all the way around the world."

Saborido, who has a degree in elementary education and Spanish, says that it is best for children to begin formally learning a second or third language as young as one and two years old. "Programs that teach children through an immersion method that also encourages students to speak, are a great supplement" to any exposure that children may have to Spanish either at home or at school, he said.

Parents who have their children enrolled Salta! are excited. Ellie Bills of Highland Park, a bi-lingual Dominican-American whose spouse speaks only English, needed some help to demonstrate the importance of Spanish and English to her daughter. Bills said she was not consistently speaking Spanish to her daughter, six-year-old Emilie.

After 10 weeks in Salta!, Bills reports Emilie is so enthusiastic about her new language, "she tells me, ‘Just speak Spanish!’ "

Salta! is in session year-round, including an eight-week, all day summer camp. The program, recently made available as a franchise, has experienced so much growth this year that two more locations will be opening in September, in Princeton and in Basking Ridge. There are plans for 19 more franchise locations throughout the state.

"I am glad to be able to make the opportunity to learn a second language convenient and available to more families," says Jackie Sanin - but she is also happy to provide a business opportunity for parents who want to spend time with their children and need flexibility.

Salta! is located on Plainfield Road in north Edison. For more information, contact Carolyn Pierson at 732.549-7722 or visit www.saltajump.com.