04/07/2000

By Dane Schiller / The Dallas Morning News

The 122-year-old company that taught English to foreign-born stars Celine Dion and Antonio Banderas will now try to help Dallas school district students learn the language.

Berlitz International Inc. says its methods of teaching English are quicker and more efficient than those of the Dallas Independent School District, where about 53,000 students - almost one-third of the district - are learning English as a second language.

Dallas schools will test that belief this summer under a $370,000 contract with the New Jersey-based company. Last week, the school board agreed to hire the company to teach 600 non-native English speakers in grades seven through 12 during summer school.

The contract is a first for Dallas schools and will mark Berlitz's largest contract to teach English for a public school district, school and company officials said. The company also has taught Spanish in Detroit and Chicago schools.

Susan Jacoby , national director of Berlitz Kids, an arm of Berlitz International Inc., estimated that Berlitz is teaching English in fewer than 20 public schools nationwide, all in districts smaller than Dallas.

Dr. Donna Bearden , the Dallas district's assistant superintendent of curriculum, said local schools are so overwhelmed with students learning English that the district is already looking at integrating Berlitz into the regular school-year curriculum.

"If they are as good as what we hear they are," she said of Berlitz, "then it is a resource we should be looking at not only for the summertime."

In the next few weeks, the district will launch a campaign to attract about 300 high school and 300 junior high school students to the Berlitz classes. About 40 classes will be taught, four hours a day, Monday through Thursday, for six weeks.

Classes will be taught by DISD teachers trained in Berlitz techniques, officials said.

Berlitz's secret is intensity and student involvement, Ms. Jacoby said.

"It is not the same old, same old," she said. "It is continuous assessment by the teacher by seeing what kids are doing."

Dr. Frank Cocchiola , superintendent of the Wallington, N.J., school district, said Berlitz has performed well for his students, 60 percent of whom were born in Poland.

"Kids keep coming," said Dr. Cocchiola, who added that students had a 90 percent attendance rate in the after-school program.

"They quickly become assimilated to the school and the culture," he said.

Over the years, more than 30 million people have studied languages through Berlitz; those learning English accounted for about 71 percent of its lessons worldwide in 1999, the company said.

Among its English-studies alumni are Ms. Dion, the Canadian-born singer who grew up speaking French, and Mr. Banderas, the Spanish actor.