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In Preschool, children are just beginning to learn about language and how it works. Exposure to multiple languages is advantageous for all children and can be supported by developmentally appropriate teaching practices that make use of songs, rhymes, and stories. In programs for beginning learners that offer appropriate time and frequency of instruction, students communicate at the Novice-Mid level using memorized language to talk about familiar topics related to school, home, and the community. After three-six years of study in programs offering the appropriate time and frequency of standards-based instruction, Novice-High through Intermediate-Mid level students communicate at the sentence level creating with language to ask and answer questions and to handle simple transactions related to everyday life and subject matter studied in other classes. After nine-twelve years of well articulated standards-based instruction, Intermediate-High through Advanced-Low level students communicate at the paragraph level and are able to handle complicated situations on a wide-range of topics.

Integration of technology within the CPIs necessitates its use as a tool in instruction and assessment.

"The fact that our students study a language from grade one not only teaches them how to learn languages, it gives them the mindset that languages are just as important as any other subject," says Janet Eklund, now in her 20th year at Glastonbury, where she's one of two Russian teachers.

"All along, we're working to make them not just language proficient, but culturally aware," says Oleksak. "We always remind them that they have to learn more than just the words to relate to people from other cultures."

"There's a Chinese saying, that if three people pass by, one of them is your teacher. We learn from just about every experience we have," says Wang. "Then we make sense of it through our language."