{"id":82298,"date":"2018-09-18T17:48:53","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T00:48:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/press-release\/kids-town-hosts-panel-on-multilingual-immersion-curriculum\/"},"modified":"2018-09-18T17:48:53","modified_gmt":"2018-09-19T00:48:53","slug":"kids-town-hosts-panel-on-multilingual-immersion-curriculum","status":"publish","type":"press-release","link":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/ko\/press-release\/kids-town-hosts-panel-on-multilingual-immersion-curriculum\/","title":{"rendered":"Kids Town Hosts Panel on Multilingual Immersion Curriculum"},"content":{"rendered":"

\ud55c\uad6d\uc5b4<\/a><\/p>\n

Kids Town Preschool<\/a> hosted an \u201cEarly Language Immersion Convening\u201d on Tues., Sept. 18 to educate parents and community members on the benefits and lessons learned from our new early childhood multilingual language immersion program.<\/p>\n

Speakers included Dr. Janet Oh, Professor of Psychology at California State University, Northridge<\/a>; Melanie Hill, PreK GLAD Trainer from the Orange County Department of Education<\/a>; Jacqueline Chun, Senior Program Officer from The Carl & Roberta Deutsch Foundation; and Sam Joo, Director of the Magnolia Community Initiative.<\/a><\/p>\n

Representing KYCC, the Kids Town Director Myung Jin Rhee and Division Director of Children and Family Services Nayon Kang spoke about the integration of the program at the school. Steve Kang, KYCC External Affairs Director, moderated the early childhood education panel discussion.<\/p>\n

\u201cKYCC wants to highlight the benefits of our language-rich environment at Kids Town Preschool,\u201d said Ms. Kang. \u201cBy sharing our lessons learned, we hope to attract families and to inspire other early childhood centers to provide a multilingual education to develop academic and social learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ten Years in the Making<\/strong><\/p>\n

The seeds of the multilingual early childhood program began in 2008 when then-Kids Town Director Lisa Kim and Dr. Oh met with researchers and conducted statewide site tours of dual language preschool programs to understand the feasibility of introducing the model to our preschool.<\/p>\n

Dr. Oh pointed out that the U.S. is the only country where learning one language is the norm. She stressed not only the importance of maintaining a child\u2019s native language but also pointed out the cognitive benefits of multilingualism.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the Kids Town children come from immigrant families,\u201d added Joo, who was the KYCC Director of Children and Family Services when the program was being researched. \u201cNot only will the students have the value of knowing English, but their native language will prepare them for a global society and to be more successful in school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Oh referenced a linguistic study that showed children can differentiate languages prenatally. \u201cSo the best time to learn a second language,\u201d she stressed, \u201cis between the ages of three to five.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the spring of 2016, KYCC introduced Pre-GLAD<\/a>, the Preschool Guided Language Acquisition Design curriculum as the precursor to our trilingual curriculum. Pre-GLAD implements the use of visuals, gestures, and songs to introduce a structured language program.<\/p>\n

The Carl & Roberta Deutsch Foundation was instrumental in the implementation of this program years ago. \u201cWe believe that learning starts at birth,\u201d explains Chun. \u201cWe also place a lot of emphasis on building strong relationships in families.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Carl & Roberta Deutsch Foundation made a unique multi-year investment because they valued the parent engagement component to the curriculum, as well as the vision to scale the model. \u201cThe potential to take this into other programs and schools to create a lifelong journey of learning had multi-pronged benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to be very strategic about our investments,\u201d explained Chun, of the foundation\u2019s funding strategy. \u201cWith the Pre-GLAD curriculum at Kids Town, we saw that there would be impact at multiple levels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Korean-English immersion was introduced at Kids Town in the fall of 2017 and Spanish-English will begin in the fall of 2019. The California Community Foundation<\/a> provided additional program funding, which was critical for curriculum development, parent engagement and the assessment and documentation process. <\/p>\n

A Perfect Fit<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kids Town Director Myung Jin Rhee explained the program\u2019s philosophy\u2014based on the Reggio Emilia approach<\/a>\u2014and how the progressive, child-centered, multi-age scaffolding curriculum was a perfect fit for the Pre-GLAD model.<\/p>\n

Melanie Hill said her experience as a PreK GLAD trainer at Kids Town has been extremely positive. \u201cI love the community that Kids Town has been able to create\u2014it\u2019s like a little village in there. It\u2019s an amazing opportunity for the students to go from classroom to classroom and use their language in multiple areas, not just in a one-classroom setting.\u201d She also praised the Kids Town staff for their cohesive planning and lessons.<\/p>\n

She emphasized that GLAD is research-based on how a child learns best, employing a comprehensive 22 strategies. \u201cStudents are getting the benefits of learning two languages and making use of a thematic unit to get a broader understanding of what they\u2019re learning\u2014all through vocabulary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about making our world smaller,\u201d Hill added, pointing out the real-world benefits. \u201cWe live in a world today where we do need to have multiple languages.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Classroom<\/strong><\/p>\n

Recently, Kids Town children were learning about transportation as a subject. From there, they had subtopics of \u201cairplane,\u201d \u201cbus\u201d and \u201chelicopter.\u201d The kids were able to explore and go into any of the three Kids Town classrooms (Maple, Willow and Aspen) where the subject is integrated into multiple mediums.<\/p>\n

Students teach each other words. Posters line the walls in Korean and English. Songs are taught and played during Music and Me, and the song lists and lyrics are handed out to the parents at pick up.<\/p>\n

\u201cParent engagement was an unexpected bonus,\u201d Rhee pointed out. \u201cKids have conversations with their parents in the car or at home about what they learned, so now we\u2019re double and tripling language exposure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kids Town took advantage of the parent enthusiasm. Handouts were distributed on \u201cWords of the Day,\u201d and videos of gestures that teachers used were emailed. Parents have commented on their ability to learn a new language from their child to grow and build upon their family relationship.<\/p>\n

Future goals<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now that the implementation phase has been completed, Kids Town is fully dual language with a Korean-English program. Spanish-English is in the works for 2019. The other foci will be on collecting and analyzing longitudinal data and to outreach and inspire the early childhood education community as a whole, so that more centers can start or enhance their own early childhood immersion programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis multilingual immersion program is incredibly fitting in a highly diverse setting like Koreatown,\u201d says Ms. Kang. \u201cIt will equip students with a heightened sense of cultural awareness, an enriched preschool experience, and a lifelong love of learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kids Town was established in 2004 as a full day, year-round preschool in Koreatown for children, ages 2.5 to 5 years. Kids Town implements a Whole Child program, focusing on intellectual development as well as emotional well-being, social skills and physical activity. Kids Town is an accredited program of the NAEYC, a national system that recognizes high-quality early education programs set to professional standards. NAEYC is currently the highest accreditation that can be awarded to early education programs.<\/p>\n

For another story on the introduction of our Pre-GLAD curriculum, please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For a KBS news story in Korean on our Multilingual Immersion Program, please click here.<\/a><\/p>\n

For additional Dual Language resources, please click here<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\ud55c\uad6d\uc5b4 Kids Town Preschool hosted an \u201cEarly Language Immersion Convening\u201d on Tues., Sept. 18 to educate parents and community members on the benefits and lessons learned from our new early …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":77801,"parent":0,"menu_order":3,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[199,222,255,258,271,299],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82298","press-release","type-press-release","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category--ko","category-children-and-families-ko","category-kids-town-ko","category-koreatown-ko","category-news-article-ko","category-youth-services-ko"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press-release\/82298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press-release"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/press-release"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press-release\/82298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}