At Home in the Great Wide World

Weng talked only in Mandarin for an hour, rattling through numbers, times of day and pleasantries, never stopping to translate. "Do you understand what he's saying?" one student whispered to another, as Weng instructed them to seat themselves in alphabetical order by last name.

By the end of class, the students were talking, too.

"Ni hao, Jared," and "Ni hao, Megan," they said, pairing off and exchanging bows. Some students, shy in the unfamiliar language, whispered their hellos.

"This class is going to be hard," said Patrick Ryan, 14, as the period ended. He said his reasons for choosing Mandarin were practical. "I heard if you are looking for a job, there's higher pay for people who speak Mandarin," he said. Other students said they liked the way Chinese characters look. One said he wants to be an FBI agent.

This year, Arlington County expanded its Spanish program for elementary students, adding an additional school, for a total of six. In Prince William, six elementary schools have offered French or Spanish since 1991. Next year, the school system plans to more than double the elementary-level program, with a proposal to add Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, French or Arabic at eight elementary schools.

Fairfax schools are spending $700,000 this year to add foreign language programs in 16 more elementary schools, targeting young learners, who experts say have a greater aptitude for absorbing language than their older peers. Each school focuses on one language that a student can continue to study in middle and high school.

The twice-weekly lessons do not take time away from math and science because they are designed to reinforce what students have learned already. For example, children studying about the ocean might read in Spanish or Mandarin about sea life.

At Beech Tree Elementary yesterday, Hussein used construction paper pictures, one of a boy and one of a girl, to teach first-graders how to say boy -- "walad" -- and girl -- "bint" -- and how to introduce themselves.

The children huddled around her on a carpet, tentative at first. Then they began to catch on. Hussein tossed a beach ball from child to child. Jasmin Martinez, 5, caught it and thought for a moment.

"Ana bint," she said. "Ismi Jasmin." ("I'm a girl. My name is Jasmin.")