Twenty years ago students at Warsaw Community High School interested in learning a world language had Spanish, French and Latin to choose from. In the last three years Warsaw has added Chinese, with German available beginning in the 2014-15 school year. The increase in course offerings is just one way WCHS Latin teacher Renatta Erwin has seen the interest in world languages grow since she started teaching more than 30 years ago. Starting Monday, the high school will celebrate World Language Week. The events for students will include a breakfast March 19 and conclude with a culture fair March 21. Tuesday evening, language students geared up for the week by creating posters to hang up throughout the school. WCHS has 10 world languages teachers this year. Erwin said each teacher probably has about 100 students. “We probably service at least half of the student body,” she said. Erwin said technology has been a big factor in more people learning a language. It can bring languages to people in their homes, or take people to places they’ve never been. Transportation also has changed over the years so it’s now easier for people to travel. This semester two of French teacher Christopher Hindsley’s students are studying in France, and Erwin is taking some students to Italy this summer. Hindsley said traveling to other countries makes the language students are studying more “alive” and “real” for them. When they return from their travels, their heightened interest and new approach to the language spreads to the other students. Chinese teacher Shu-Chun Tseng said, “Traveling will impact a personality as well. I’ve been traveling since the fourth grade. Traveling to different cultures helped me adjust in different environments so easily.” Another factor in the growth of world languages, Erwin said, is that the honors diploma requires a student to take some foreign language. A downside to more languages being offered is that the more languages there are, the fewer students there are to go around, she admitted. Regardless of which world language a student takes, there are many advantages to studying at least one of them. All the world languages have an after-school club, with the Chinese club just starting this year. The language students get to go out together and dine at restaurants for each of the languages. “There’s all kinds of things we do to bring students in,” Erwin noted. The purpose of World Language Week, she said, is to promote world languages and the important things students can learn through them. The breakfast from 6:50 to 7:40 a.m. Wednesday in the Black Box Theatre will include churros, baguettes and croissants, taquitos, quiche, orange juice, scrambled eggs, cinnamon rolls, Chinese dumplings and doughnuts. Students have to have a dot on their name tag to get into the breakfast. “We fed over 200 kids last year,” Erwin estimated. Tseng said Peking is offering the dumplings. This will be the third year Peking has done that. OrthoWorx also is offering Indian dishes, while an employee of DePuy is offering Korean dishes. Grace College is helping serve breakfast, Tseng said. “We have a lot more community involvement this year than last,” Hindsley said. This is the first year World Language Week will include a culture fair where there will be activities like mask creations, impressionist paintings and bocci ball. “We’ve got eight different activities for kids to take part in,” Erwin said. Tseng said a Japanese DePuy employee will be teaching origami. His wife may wear traditional Japanese dress, though that isn’t certain as of Tuesday. “Learning a language will help students develop global perspectives. Learning a second culture helps them to recognize their own culture and be open-minded to other cultures,” Tseng stated. Learning a new language and culture doesn’t always require a trip overseas. Since there is a large Latino population locally, Spanish teacher Michelle Wysong said that regardless of the profession a student may choose for a career, they will have many opportunities to use Spanish. “For me, I recognized from a young age the usefulness of the Spanish language in our community. I can use Spanish more around the world as well as in our own community,” Wysong said. Sophomore Bonnie Wong is in her second year of taking Chinese. “I was born speaking English. I figured why not learn a second language. I thought it would help communicate with my relatives since they really don’t know English,” she said. Wong said learning Chinese has been “pretty easy since I already know how to say everything. I just can’t write it down.” Freshman Jessica Medden chose to learn French. “It seemed like an interesting language. Just like the way you say words. Everyone told others to take Spanish, I decided to take French,” she stated. Senior Alondra Araujo has taken Latin all four years in high school. She said she took Latin “to just understand the roots of all the languages I can since I have a thing for linguistics. I thought it would be helpful for me.” A big fan of languages, she said she also knows Spanish, English, elementary-level Japanese and a little Swedish. Evie Daggett, a junior in her third year of Spanish, said she chose Spanish because she heard it’s supposed to be one of the leading languages in her lifetime. “So I thought I’d learn it. Plus, it sounded really fun,” Daggett said. “It has been fun. I love it. It’s my highest grade right now.” Born in Brazil, senior Carolina Daffre is already fluent in Portuguese. She’s now in level five of Spanish and level three of Chinese. While Spanish seemed like a natural fit with her Portuguese, Daffre said she chose Chinese because it was so different from the other languages. “Spanish, I feel I’m becoming fluent. Chinese would be hard if the teacher wasn’t so great,” she said. Daffre also remarked, “I hope to become a doctor so I hope (learning these languages) will help me as I go around the world.”
