"There once was a cow that went OINK. The cows that went MOO laughed at the cow that went OINK...The cow that went OINK was very sad. One day she heard a friendly MOO. It was a pig that went MOO...The pigs that went OINK laughed at the pig that went MOO...The pig that went MOO was very sad...The cow that went OINK had an idea. She would teach the pig to OINK."

As the first graders listened to their teacher read the story, T.J. raised his hand and said, "Maestra, the cow and the pig are like us. I teach my friends English and they teach me Spanish."

Bernard Mosts's story, The Cow That Went Oink, inspired these six-year-old children to see the parallel between themselves and the animals in the story. Our multilingual world resembles that barnyard where misunderstandings and conflicts can occur when we fail to communicate or understand a language or culture different from our own. "Certainly, any child has the capacity to perform in several languages naturally. It's only in America we find that odd." (Dr. Russell Campbell, Professor of Linguistics, UCLA)

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion Programs, also referred to as Dual Language Programs, are designed to tap into the precious resource inherent within a minority language population: its language and culture. Majority language students are placed in classrooms with minority language students. Just as the cow and the pig work together in our example above, so the children work together teaching each other their languages. Programs are carefully designed to integrate students of different linguistic backgrounds throughout their academic instruction. This enables students to learn about different cultures, to work together to solve problems, and to develop respect for another culture at an early age. There are approximately 167 Two-Way Programs operating in the U.S. The most common target language is Spanish, but there are programs in Korean, French, Navajo, Cantonese, Chinese, Arabic, Japanese, Russian, and Portuguese. Remember: these are not foreign language classrooms where the objective is second language acquisition. The second language is actually the vehicle for instruction. In a monolingual society such as the U.S., foreign languages are generally introduced in high school. A 1996 Newsweek article entitled Your Child's Brain, by Sharon Begley, reported on brain research that supports introducing children to languages in early life. Birth to age 10 is a critical time for the auditory cortex to develop the ability to establish circuits that discriminate sounds and phonemes. If sounds and phonemes from different languages are never experienced by a person, these circuits are never established, making it extremely difficult to learn another language. Europeans have ample opportunity to activate these circuits, as they are commonly exposed to more than one language in elementary school and in their travels to nearby countries. We, in the U.S., will find it difficult to compete with our international rivals if we don not promote multilingualism to children in early years.

The goals of a Two-Way Immersion Program are:

• High levels of proficiency in the primary language

• High levels of proficiency in the target language

• High levels of academic performance in two languages

• High levels of self-esteem

  A program operates at Laton Elementary School in California. Here, kindergartners attend a class with an equal balance of students from English-speaking backgrounds and students from Spanish-speaking backgrounds (it also helps to have some bilinguals in the class).

  The teacher instructs in Spanish for 90% of the day. To begin with, all students learn to read and write in Spanish, no matter what their linguistic background. English Language Develop-ment is the focus of the remaining 10% of the day.

  As students move up through the grades, the amount of Spanish language instruction decreases as the percentage of English content increases. By the fifth grade, students will be bilingual and biliterate. The table below illustrates how a typical 90/10 model designates instruction throughout the course of the program. Skeptics question how this model could work. It seems to conflict with the philosophy of bilingual education in that the English-speaking students receive little primary language instruction, and demonstrate high levels of academic achievement. Yet, bilingual educators are strong supporters of this model. The answer lies in the concepts of additive and subtractive bilingualism.

  English-speaking children are in a country where their native language is dominant. They are not at risk of losing their native language skills. The children enjoy the benefit of additive bilingualism. Children from a minority language background are surrounded by people speaking an unfamiliar language. Store signs, television, and reading materials are not readily comprehensible. These children are at risk of losing their language and culture if they are immersed in the dominant language--unless the family makes a concerted effort to preserve it.

  These children often fail to cultivate two languages and experience subtractive bilingualism. They sacrifice their native language for a new one. As a teacher, and a parent, involved in Two-Way Bilingual immersion, I have observed the benefits the program affords all children who participate. Students are aware that all of their contributions are important. Students serve as language models for each other. They feel special to be held up as a role model in front of their peers. Their language and culture is being honored. This is important in a state like California where language minorities are under attack. I recall a high school girl who grew up unaware of racism while participating in a Two-Way Program from Kindergarten to Junior High School. Moving to another school district, she became ostracized by her Anglo peers for befriending Maria, a newly arrived student from Mexico. Her unique educational experience taught her to celebrate diversity rather than disparage it. As parents, we can see the benefits our daughter is reaping from this program. We are providing her with the gift of language and understanding of people who are different from her.

  At six-years-old, she is well on her way to becoming multilingual because she began school bilingual in English and Italian, and is now adding Spanish to her repertoire. She comes home with stories of life in a culture different from her own and an insight into the narrow views of those who attack the language and culture of others.

  "The cow and the pig were very happy. Each of them could MOO and OINK. And they were the only animals on the farm that could do both. So they had the last laugh."

  As the first grade teacher finished the story the children applaused knowing that, in their class, they are lucky. Although it may be beyond the grasp of a six-year-old, I know the future is bright for these children.

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  Cathy Marziali is the Multilingual Programs Manager for the Laton Unified Schools District, near Fresno, California