My wife and I are enrolling our soon-to-be five year old in a Spanish immersion program when he begins kindergarten this fall, and this movie is largely what sold us on the idea. Our school district hosted a viewing of "Speaking in Tongues" as part of an informational session on its program in particular and immersion programs in general. The film helped us have a better understanding of how immersion programs actually work (the film includes a scene of a kindergarten class on its very first day in a Chinese immersion program, and the look on one little boy's face as his teacher is explaining to him in Chinese where to put his backpack is priceless) and what the benefits of them are. After speaking to the educators who actually run the program in our area, I don't have expectations that our son will come out of fifth grade actually speaking a foreign language. It sounds like not enough attention has been paid to developing the program past elementary school for that. But the cognitive, problem-solving and social development advantages that studies have shown are part of these immersion programs are incredibly persuasive whether or not at the end of it all the child is bilingual.
Grade: A-