Kindergarten students in some areas learning Chinese, Arabic and other 'critical' languages)

As a time when some states offer no publicly funded pre-school progams, some kindergartners are getting the chance to learn Chinese, Arabic and Japanese. An Associated Press story widely picked up this week descriped a Fairfax. Virginia classroom where students were playing "Jeopardy,'' using clues in Chinese.

The langugae classes are part of a $114 million effort known as the National Security Language Initiative aimed at increasing the number of Americans learning languages such as Russian, Hindi and Farsi, in addition to Arabic and Chinese -- languages deemed critical to U.S. security and foreign policy interests.

The initiative recognizes that deficits in U.S. foreign langauge learning "negatively affect our national security, diplomacy, law enforcement, intelligence communities and cultural understanding.''

Jay Mathews of the Washington Post has noted the classes often serve another purpose: some of the Arabic language classes offered in Washington D.C. area schools were filled with students whose families came from countries where Arabic was the most common language -- and wanted to improve their reading and writing in their native language.

The Associated Press, piece, meanwhile, did a nice job of showing how quickly young children pick up languages -- and how much they enjoy it. Journalists who live in areas where such classes are offered should consider asking to sit in on a class and find out which languages are most popular -- and why -- and who is registering to take them.