Schools reaching out to Portuguese community

Primary school kids who are already fluent in English and Spanish are learning Portuguese in this district. And many of us struggle with only one! - - Donna Poisl

By Linda Conner Lambeck, Staff writer

BRIDGEPORT -- Sarah Hernandez, 9, has a ready answer for why she'd want to learn Portuguese.

"At home, I always speak Spanish, so why would I take Spanish," said the Multicultural Magnet School third-grader.

Intent on becoming fluent in a third language, Hernandez is in her third year of taking a Portuguese Language Arts class from Maria Conroy, one of school's two Portuguese language teachers.

She knows how to count in Portuguese, can say the days of the week and months of the years. She listens as Conroy reads a storybook called Borboletas and knows its about butterflies.

She even has a few classmates of Portuguese descent in her class; from Brazil and Cape Verdi.

Not enough to suit some.

Portuguese is the second most common foreign language spoken among city students at home, after Spanish. As of 2006, there were 534 students in the district whose families speak Portuguese at home and 142 whose dominate language is Portuguese.
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