After five years of planning, Portland Public Schools opened Oregon’s first pre-kindergarten class where students learn English and Vietnamese simultaneously. The program seeks to make students bilingual and biliterate.
In a Facebook post published on September 27, 2024, Portland Public Schools teachers and administrators cut a ceremonial red ribbon to celebrate the opening of a Vietnamese dual language classroom for preschoolers. The video shows a group of young children dancing, clapping, and reciting Vietnamese words along with their teacher.
However, this accomplishment was only made possible after a decade of hard work. In 2014, the district inaugurated the first Vietnamese program with a class of 31 students. The district started the program to better serve more than 520 Vietnamese-speaking students who are learning English. Yet, this Portland-based program is not the only one in the nation. Currently, there are many similar programs in places like Westminster, California, Irvine, California, Austin, Texas, and more.
While the program originally struggled to fill two classrooms, it has greatly expanded since then. With the new classroom opening, students can now study Vietnamese from pre-kindergarten to high school. Students do not need prior knowledge of Vietnamese to enter the program. While that may sound intimidating for some families, research has found that starting language learning at an early age brings cognitive benefits to children.
Furthermore, the district takes a gradual approach to language immersion. Within elementary school, students follow a 50:50 model where half the day is taught in Vietnamese while the other half is taught in English. Once a student enters the sixth grade, one-third of the day is taught in Vietnamese. In high school, students can seek official recognition of their language abilities through awards like the Oregon State Seal of Biliteracy.
Aside from the Vietnamese program, Portland Public Schools also has dual language programs for Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and Russian. The district has become a leader in dual language education by investing in these long-term programs. Furthermore, the district has created the Portland Dual Language Teacher Residency Program to recruit more bilingual teachers.
Through initiatives like this dual language program, students will be able to connect with the large Vietnamese population in the state. According to the Oregon Secretary of State, Vietnamese is the second most spoken language among people with limited English proficiency with an estimated 15,915 speakers. Within Portland, the Vietnamese community comprises 2% of the population. This community’s cultural influence can be seen in the city’s highly praised Vietnamese restaurants and the latest “Vietnamese Cafe Renaissance” that brought traditional phin drip coffee. In 2022, Oregon became the state with the most Vietnamese state lawmakers in the country after five Vietnamese candidates won elections.
Daniel Salgado-Alvarez is a Fall 2024 Young Professional at the East-West Center. He is a recent graduate from Harvard University, where he studied sociology and East Asian studies.