STUDENTS SPEAK 68 TONGUES ARMENIAN TOPS ENGLISH AS FIRST LANGUAGE SPOKEN BY STUDENTS.

Byline: Helen Gao Staff Writer

GLENDALE - Nearly 38 percent of students attending Glendale schools are learning English as a second language, with most speaking Armenian, Spanish or Korean as their native tongue, according says a new study released by the school district.

More than 11,400 of the 30,228 students in the Glendale Unified School District are so-called English-language learners. Together, not counting English, the students speak 67 different foreign languages.

Armenian tops English as the language spoken the most by students. A total of 10,608 students claim Armenian as their primary language - whether they are fluent in English or still learning it - while 9,071 students list English as such.

School board member Pam Ellis said the statistics are not a surprise, given the state's demographics.

``In California, there is no majority any more. You find that in almost any district,'' she said. ``We are continuing to be a first stop for new immigrants.''

About one-third of Glendale's nearly 200,000 residents are of Armenian descent, Ellis noted.

After Armenian, the most common languages other than English in the district are Spanish, Korean and Tagalog, in that order.

About 5,330 students report Spanish as their primary language and 2,967 said it was Korean. Taglog is spoken by 778 students.

As a result of the large immigrant population, the school district has an army of teachers who specialize in bilingual education, according to the report.

The district has 829 teachers with language development credentials, 96 with credentials to provide instruction in their students' primary language, and 253 bilingual education assistants.

The majority of the 96 credentialed bilingual teachers, however, speak Spanish. Thirty-five speak Armenian.

Ellis said it's difficult to recruit Armenian-speaking teachers because most take Spanish to fulfill course requirements when studying for credentials.

The study noted the schools with the highest percentages of English language learners: Edison elementary (73 percent); Mann elementary (71 percent); and Jefferson elementary (69 percent).

Since the school district conducted its last study a year ago, 1,634, or 14.2 percent of its English language learner population, have advanced to become proficient in English. The state advancement rate is generally between 9 and 10 percent.

District officials credit their success to aggressive, year-round literacy intervention programs.

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SOURCE: Glendale Unified School District

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