U.S. Alaskan children taught in Russian 2-3-05

[dmcowen674]

2-3-2005 Anchorage Students Learning in Russian

The littlest students at one Anchorage school are learning their lessons in Russian, the complex tongue of Alaska's former owner and a language increasingly important for improved international relations.

Russian is spoken as a first language by 170 million people; it's a second language for at least 100 million more.

The program is being launched with a $490,000 three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education

Officials with the 49,000-student district plan to expand it each year at the 365-student school, ultimately offering it in all grades.

Russian ? along with Arabic, Chinese and Korean ? are identified as the most crucial languages to learn in international relations, said Davidson of the Russian teachers council, a division of the nonprofit American Councils for International Education.

 

[ReiAyanami]

that's nothing compared to the $200 million bridge that goes to nowhere that the porky Senator from Alaska got them.

 

[Infohawk]

And evel less compared to the $200 billion bridge that goes to nowhere that the Shrub got for the whole country!

 

[EagleKeeper]

1) Russian is like a second language to some up there.

2) The Russian Orthodox Chuch is much more prevalent than the Roman Catholic.

3) What is the difference between learning spanish in school or another language.

Is there a problem with what is being tought or why? 😕

 

[RabidMongoose]

Sounds like a good program.

Or is learning supposed to be bad?

 

[bdude]

I wish I knew cyrillic.

 

[dmcowen674]

Points of Interest as far as I am concerned:

Does his apply to all the kids.

Will these kids be able to pass all required English Reading, Math etc when they graduate from 12th grade or will they be Russian speaking idiots.

Why is additional Government money needed to fund this, is this part of NCLB???

 

[ReiAyanami]

the valid question is how much is the cost compared to current foreign language programs such as french, german, spanish that are the current staple. and more importantly how many russian spies will we be able to raise in alaska?

 

[fornax]

Any language studied in school is useful. It is rather sad that many US school children never get exposed to a foreign language. Chinese is not for the faint of heart (having studied it for four years, I can testify to that 🙂) but almost any European language is better than no language at all.