Illinois school district exposes students in kindergarten through fifth grade to both Spanish and English instruction.

A few words of Spanish, and the kindergartners snapped to attention.

Only five minutes remained before the end of the day in Sara Diaz's class at Parrish School in Carbondale, and after hours of learning, mental fatigue had started setting in among the students.

"Ojos a la maestra," Diaz said in her native tongue - "Eyes on the teacher."

At once, students abandoned conversations and coloring to look up, wide-eyed, at Diaz.

"They are tired at the end of the day because their brain is working so hard," she said. "They feel good."

Diaz's class is part of a two-way immersion program through Carbondale Elementary School District 95 that exposes students in kindergarten through fifth grade to both Spanish and English instruction, in the hopes that bilingualism and multicultural experience will result in broad cognitive benefits for students.

At Parrish School, kindergartners and first graders in the two-way immersion program receive 90 percent of their instruction in Spanish and 10 percent in English. Thomas School second- and third-graders receive 80 percent Spanish instruction. For Lewis School fourth- and fifth-graders, that number falls to 50 percent.

In a district where about 10 percent of students speak English as a second language, Superintendent Mike Shimshak said the program helps develop students into "global citizens."

More than half the program's students are English-speakers, but nearly as many come from Spanish-speaking homes.

"My vision is bilingualism for all of our students," he said. "I think that's an important part of developing intercultural competency."

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