These classes are needed all over our country. Our students have to learn more languages to be competitive in the future. DP
By VERENA DOBNIK | Associated Press Writer
Newsday.com: NEW YORK - Days before the start of the school year, Fabrice Jaumont walked out of the French Embassy's Fifth Avenue mansion, his arms filled with boxes containing books, DVDs and CDs in his native tongue.
He loaded them into the trunk of a car. Destination: the Bronx.
The 35-year-old diplomat was headed to a public school in one of the nation's poorest districts. On Tuesday, some of the students in the Bronx's Jordan L. Mott middle school will arrive for science and other classes - taught in French.
Four new dual-language programs are starting in the city this fall for the first time: three in French, including one in Harlem, and one in Chinese.
"It's about time," says Jaumont, the education attache at the French Embassy in Manhattan, the cultural branch of the main embassy in Washington.
"This is a competitive country, and if Americans want to compete globally, they won't be first any more if their language skills are not good," says the energetic young diplomat, whose English is peppered with American jargon.
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