A Denver charter school that excels on state tests and focuses on preparing students for an increasingly complicated world also refuses to teach English to its youngest students.

Kids in kindergarten through the second-grade are instead immersed in Spanish or Mandarin Chinese, two of the world’s most dominant languages. Students pick up formal English language instruction when they enter the third grade at the K-8 Denver Language School, which emphasizes both linguistic skills and cultural aptitude in a student’s adopted language, principal Kathy Benzel said.

“We want our kids to do well in not only speaking the language but also knowing about the culture and the people who use that language,” Benzel said. “And our kids adapt pretty quickly. They talk about movies, what they did over the weekend, in a new language. It comes pretty naturally to them to take on something new.

“Our kids are really good at being comfortable at being uncomfortable.”

Posters, graphs and artwork in Chinese or Spanish dot the classrooms where students chatter and joke with instructors in their adopted language. Many of the Mandarin teachers hail from mainland China or Taiwan, and the Spanish teachers largely come from Spanish-speaking countries.

The school sought to hire as many native speakers as possible, so students can hear proper pronunciation and intonation.

Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post Chinese teacher Yu-Hsin Lien, speaking only in Chinese, helps her 3rd grade students with classwork at the Denver Language School on Nov. 1, 2017 in Denver.

Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post Xavier Templeton, 10, right, learns about the five animal kingdoms in his 5th grade Spanish class taught by Jagoba Velasco at the Denver Language School on November 1, 2017 in Denver, Colorado.

Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post Spanish teacher Jagoba Velasco, center, helps his 5th grade students with class work at the Denver Language School on Nov. 1, 2017 in Denver.



Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post Chinese teacher Fay Tsai teaches her 4th grade class at the Denver Language School on Nov. 1, 2017 in Denver.

Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post Chinese teacher Yu-Hsin Lien, speaking only in Chinese, helps her 3rd grade students with classwork at the Denver Language School on Nov. 1, 2017 in Denver.

“Students will learn to speak the target language and will sound the same as native speakers,” Benzel said. “That is our goal.”

“Once you learn Spanish, it’s really easy to learn English; they are both about the same,” 10-year-old Lorenzo Vannoni said. Lorenzo is a classroom ambassador, charged with approaching visitors and asking if they wish to speak English or the targeted language. He explains the day’s lesson to visitors.

“I’ve been here since kindergarten,” Lorenzo adds, “and I think it’s preparing me well for the future.”

The school opened its doors in August 2010 as Denver’s only full-language immersion K-8 charter school. Kids in the primary grades often lag behind their peers in English language skills. But once they hit the fifth or sixth grade, students’ English skills “really take off,” said Camilla Modesitt, a school co-founder and director of development.

That’s because learning a language is more than just learning vocabulary and syntax, Modesitt said. It also involves high-end problem solving, which prompts kids to pay attention to context and to interact more easily with others.

By middle school, language immersion students often outperform their non-immersion counterparts in all subject areas, including English, on standardized tests.

“Simply speaking, kids in immersion programs have better brains,” Modesitt said. “It’s neuroscience, really.”

The school’s total immersion plan is rigorous and unflinching. Every core curriculum class — including math, science and social studies — is taught in Spanish or Mandarin, depending on the student’s choice. The only exceptions are music, art and physical education.

Even parent volunteers are prohibited from using English in the core classes. Beginning in the third grade, English instruction is introduced gradually and never exceeds 50 percent of instruction in core classes.

“When implemented with integrity, the K-8 early total immersion model is powerful,” Benzel said.

The most recent state test scores appear to bear this out. Denver Language School students were ranked No. 1 in third-grade English and math and No. 1 in fourth-grade math and social studies among the 117 charter and innovation schools in Denver Public Schools.

The school was among the top 10 middle schools in math, science and English scores, and 75 percent of its sixth-graders met or exceeded expectations in English, nearly double the district average. In third-grade math, 69 percent of Denver Language School students met or exceeded expectations, nearly double the district average.

School leaders said they wanted to concentrate on Spanish and Mandarin Chinese because of the impact both languages are having on the world. Chinese is used by more people (700 million) than any other language on the planet. English is spoken by about 400 million people. Chinese also carries more cognitive benefits since it requires both the left and right sides of the brain to process the language, Modesitt said.

Spanish, meanwhile, is the most common second language in the United States, and the Hispanic population is the fastest growing in the United States. Mastering two languages, Benzel said, will prepare students to adapt and thrive in the 21st century.

“This presents great domestic opportunities, as well as international career opportunities for bilingual professionals,” Benzel said.

Modesitt and co-founder Kristy Frantz say they were focused on opening a public school.

“Students should get the same type of immersion instruction in a public school as they do in a private school,” Modesitt said. “And I think, by us being here, we are drawing kids from private schools.”

As a charter school, Denver Language School is part of DPS but operates independently from the district. Students don’t pay tuition, but they face a long waiting list to get in.

The school is riding a nationwide wave of popularity for dual language and immersion programs. Both Utah and Delaware have state-mandated immersion programs, and the number of dual language programs in the U.S. has grown from 700 in 2004 to 2,400 in 2015, according to the Center for Applied Linguistics, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization.

That growth is due to parents recognizing that literacy in multiple languages will benefit their kids in an increasingly globalized world, said Beatriz Arias, the center’s associate vice president.

“We’ve become a multilingual, global society, and parents recognized the benefits of growing up and learning in multilingual environments,” Arias said. The programs have also avoided the controversy surrounding bilingual education, which has been attacked as being disrespectful to the native language.

“It’s not been as politically charged and it’s easier for people to accept,” she said.

Mikella Tawedrose was among the first students to enroll at Denver Language School. Her mother, who is from Ethiopia, wanted her to learn different languages. Mikella said picking up Mandarin is easy for young kids.

“They can learn it pretty quickly, so it was easier for me,” she said.

Meilani Dugarte, another eighth-grader, said her use of Mandarin surprised people in China when her school group visited last year.

“They looked at me and they were very surprised,” Meilani said. “They were saying, ‘Wow these Americans are very smart.’ ”