Fun In Four Languages North Idaho Teachers Foster Enthusiasm For Learning At Annual Foreign Language Festival For Students

If Patrizia Mueller had stayed in Germany, where she was born, she would know three languages by now.

“They study English starting in the second grade,” the Coeur d’Alene High School student said Thursday. “Over there, to graduate you need to know three languages.”

There’s no disagreement that languages are best learned at a young age. But America’s public school system doesn’t usually offer language classes until ninth grade.

Eager to foster enthusiasm for their subjects among such “late starters,” North Idaho language teachers organize the annual Foreign Language Festival.

It was there that Mueller was explaining a geography game to students in the festival’s carnival section. They got candy for prizes. If they wanted, they could spend some of their fake foreign cash to buy an arrest warrant and send a friend to “jail.”

To get out of the hoosegow, kids had to speak whatever language they were studying.

In another room at Templin’s Resort, Eastern Washington University instructor Wayne Kraft was giving spirited folk dance lessons.

“Come out in the center and say ‘I want to dance!”’ he said to students who might need a partner.

Down the resort hallway, students crammed words into their brains before competing in skits, poetry recitation, singing and interviews.

Among them was Kristi Fetveit, who was strumming her guitar. She attends North Idaho Christian School, the only private academy represented.

Language studies are required there, said Fetveit.

“Every other year, the teacher takes the class to France or Spain,” she said. “We didn’t go this year because most of us wanted to get cars. So we’re going our senior year.”

In the public schools, languages are offered as an elective. Many students sign up because they want to go to colleges where language is a requirement, said Lake City High School teacher Jerre Coleman. She thinks interest may be on the rise; last year, LCHS added an extra French class.

Spanish, German and French were the languages represented at the festival.

Ryan Duncan, a Lake City junior, chose French in part because there’s French blood in his family. He wishes he’d gotten an earlier start.

“I think elementary school would be good,” he said.

Nan Luppert agrees. A Spokane Valley teacher on hand to judge the skits, she said her ninth-grade students are pen pals with French kids who’ve already studied German for six or eight years.

But then, she added, European kids know they’ll be using other languages. The most motivated American students are the ones who have a clear reason to study it.

“My best students are Mormons because they know they’re going to have to learn it for their missions,” Luppert said.

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