The Global Classroom : Language immersion programs involve more than memorizing different words. Starting in kindergarten, students learn in a non-English environment, which proponents say gives them an edge in a multicultural society.

Principal Stephen Martinez tiptoed into the Farragut Elementary School kindergarten classroom in Culver City, trying not to be noticed.

It didn’t work.

Hearing him, the students--whites, Latinos, African Americans and Asian Americans--jumped up, faced Martinez, bowed deeply, and greeted him in a singsong chorus with “ Ohayo Gozaimasu Martinez Sensei .”

Martinez grinned, bowed, and replied “Ohayo Gozaimasu.”

The formalities over, the children sat back on the floor, cross-legged in rows marked by strips of colored tape on the rug.

Red and blue construction paper folded into shapes of birds and elephants, called origami , were pinned to a corkboard. On a wall nearby was a clock with Japanese Kanji characters instead of Arabic numerals, and a photo of Japan’s royal family.

Martinez sat down to observe, and teacher Naomi Kawano resumed her lesson, reading aloud to her students in Japanese a tale about a dog and cat who become friends.

The children sat in rapt attention, appearing to understand her every word.

Farragut is one of about 150 elementary schools nationwide that “immerses” children in foreign languages ranging from Spanish and French to Japanese and Korean. The idea, say educators, is to start teaching second languages to kids when they are eager 5-year-olds, not when they’re 16--and less willing to learn.

And rather than taking a single language class that meets for an hour a day, students in immersion programs actually do course work--history, social studies, math--in a second language.

Such learning has taken root on the Westside, which is served by three of the 45 school districts statewide that have language immersion programs.

Culver City Unified launched the country’s first Spanish immersion program in 1971. Now the district has a K-5 Spanish immersion curriculum and a newly launched kindergarten through second-grade Japanese immersion program, which serve 300 students.

Los Angeles Unified has three Korean and four Spanish immersion programs in elementary schools, with one of the Spanish programs at Grand View Elementary in Mar Vista serving 146 students.

Santa Monica/Malibu Unified offers K-8 Spanish immersion courses and next fall plans to add ninth-grade Spanish-language courses in physical science, humanities and algebra to its foreign immersion track, which now serves 405 students.

The rationale offered for such programs is that Americans must learn to communicate in other tongues in an era of growing economic and cultural interdependence.

“We’re deficient in our collective knowledge of other languages and other cultures,” said Russell Campbell, a professor of linguistics at UCLA who helped design Culver City’s program 23 years ago. Language immersion, he says, produces “kids who can use other languages in the real world, and who can be a benefit to society.”

Immersion usually begins in kindergarten. In the early grades students are taught almost exclusively in a second language so that by second and third grade they are reading and writing in it.

In the Culver City and Santa Monica programs only 20 minutes a day is spent on English instruction in kindergarten, but that amount increases as students progress to higher grades.

Fourth- and fifth-graders at El Rincon Elementary in Culver City and Edison Elementary in Santa Monica spend half their school day learning in Spanish and half in English. Culver City students who make it through the K-5 Spanish immersion curriculum can go on to take a Spanish language arts course in middle school and an advanced Spanish language course at Culver City High.

Young children, though generally less inhibited than older students when learning a second language, still face hurdles in mastering another tongue. Learning to write the complicated Kanji alphabet--one of three Japanese alphabets--poses a special challenge.

“(It’s) a meticulous process,” said Kawano. “Their motor skills are not as developed yet, so they go through a process of repetition.”

But immersion veterans say their intensive early instruction made learning in another language far easier in higher grades.

Ayanna Bledsoe, an eighth-grader at John Adams Middle School in Santa Monica, says one of her toughest assignments recently was “no big deal,” thanks to the earlier immersion courses she took as a youngster.

“We had to read ‘Don Quixote,’ in Spanish,” said Bledsoe, 13, a native English speaker. “Then we had to do a book report in Spanish.”

She helps her younger sister, a fifth-grader at Edison Elementary, with her Spanish homework. And the pair use their new language for some extracurricular communicating at home. Nothing, Bledsoe says, beats dishing some chisme (gossip) in Spanish within earshot of their mother, who speaks only English.

Teachers in the Culver City and Santa Monica school districts say many immersion students approach foreign language programs as Bledsoe does--a challenge that is fun at the same time.

Initially, however, some parents worry that immersion classes might put their children at a disadvantage when it comes time to do English-language schoolwork.

For Diana Bulgatz, that concern proved short-lived. Bulgatz acknowledges she had some qualms when she enrolled her daughter, Heidi, in Culver City’s Spanish immersion program in 1974.

“My friends asked, ‘Aren’t you worried that its going to ruin her English?’ ” recalled Bulgatz. But she decided to try the program anyway.

Heidi Bulgatz graduated Phi Beta Kappa from UC Santa Barbara two years ago with a degree in cultural anthropology and a minor in French. She developed fluency in Spanish in the Culver City schools, and went on to learn French and study one year at the University of Bordeaux in France.

Heidi Bulgatz is now an international marketing consultant for a company that manufactures and sells inflatable kayaks and rafts. “It’s a great program,” her mother said. “I wish we had more in the schools.”

Campbell of UCLA says research has shown that immersion students do as well or better on standardized performance and achievement tests as other students.

But immersion programs have not come problem-free.

Elementary school textbooks in Spanish and Japanese are hard to find in the United States, so school districts have to buy them from publishers in Spain, Mexico and Japan. It’s particularly hard finding Japanese texts, said Vera Jashni, a deputy superintendent with the Culver City schools.

Another problem is the popularity of the immersion programs. In the Culver City and Santa Monica school systems, officials say, some students have been put on waiting lists because there has been no room in the classes.

Finding qualified teachers has also been a challenge. Both Santa Monica and Culver City have hired teachers from Spain.

But despite such problems, the successes of immersion classes have prompted a diverse group of families to choose the schooling for their children.

When Edison Elementary’s immersion program was in its early stages five years ago, 88% of the student body was Latino, says Principal Ruth Odell. Since then, the school has drawn students from communities including Inglewood, Pacific Palisades and Baldwin Hills. Largely because of the immersion classes, Odell says, enrollment now is 59% Latino, 30% white, 9% African American and 2% Asian.

“People think we’re crazy,” said Debbie Leathers, the white parent of a first-grader in Farragut’s Japanese immersion program. Leathers admits she was worried about her son Phillip getting little English instruction until the second grade. But she says she thought a knowledge of Japanese might open doors for him.

“This program seemed like a way to provide a challenge, enrichment and offer him opportunities for the future,” she said.

So far, she adds, she’s happy with the results.

Leathers said her son is learning such math concepts as more than and less than in Japanese. And referring to the three Japanese alphabets, she said: “Last year, they learned Hiragana. Now, they almost know all of Katakana, and they’re tackling Kanji. He has no problems writing the letters.”

A large number of students in Westside immersion programs are of Japanese or Latino descent. In some cases, parents want their children exposed to the family’s cultural heritage. In others, families who do not speak English at home see the immersion program as a way to ease their children into the language.

Experts say native Spanish speakers enrolled in immersion programs do as well or better in school than Spanish speakers who are not--partly because they encounter English more gradually--and, thus, more confidently.

Consuelo Perez is from Jalisco, Mexico, and has a daughter, Brisa, in John Adams Middle School’s Spanish immersion program. When she enrolled Brisa in kindergarten at Edison eight years ago, the child knew no English.

Now 14, Brisa is an A student, reads and writes in Spanish and English and plans to attend Loyola Marymount University.

“The program is good because since they can speak Spanish and English, and feel comfortable learning, their self-esteem is very strong,” said Perez, who received only a sixth-grade education. “She will have more opportunities here and in Latin America.”

Westside school officials say immersion programs are likely to expand.

The expansion, in fact, is already under way. After Santa Monica Unified adds its new ninth-grade immersion courses this fall, it plans to offer Spanish immersion humanities, math and science courses next year, said Peggy Harris, the district’s language coordinator.

“We’re even talking about a preschool Spanish immersion program,” Harris said. Ultimately, she said, the district hopes to help Santa Monica College establish an immersion program for its students.

“The possibilities are endless,” Harris said.