Children learn Japanese as part of language immersion program

Jet, March 7, 1994

First-grade students in an inner-city public school in Detroit are learning more than just their ABC's.

Despite having no Japanese heritage, the students can rattle off the hiragana characters of the Japanese language.

All day long, they hear only Japanese from their teachers. They can recite their math problems in Japanese and their language readers open from left to right as in Japan.

Detroit's Foreign Language Immersion and Cultural Studies School is one of about 150 public elementary schools nationwide whose curricula are taught in a foreign tongue.

The parents of the 126 students in Detroit have chosen to enroll their children in the school because they feel that proficiency in the lanuage will enhance their children's future job prospects.

In Japan, students begin studying English in the seventh grade.