KPCC Southern California Public Radio recently featured this story on Garden Grove Unified’s new Vietnamese dual immersion program, which places that district in rare company.
As KPCC notes, two-way language immersion programs are on the rise across the U.S. and in the state, but the overwhelming majority are in Spanish or Mandarin. Only two programs in California split time between Vietnamese and English, and both are in Orange County.
The Westminster School District became the first in the county to offer Vietnamese dual immersion, opening an academy at DeMille Elementary School in 2015. Two years later, Garden Grove celebrated the launch of its own program for transitional kindergarten students at Murdy Elementary School.
KPCC reporter Jill Replogle reached out to both districts to dive into the benefits and challenges of offering two-way Vietnamese instruction. You can listen to the story or read a version on the KPCC (89.3 FM) website.