OTHER TONGUESAmong those 5 years and older in Tennessee• Almost 6 percent, or 328,390, spoke a language other than English at home.• 58 percent, or 183,068, spoke Spanish• 4.2 percent, or 13,804, spoke German• 3.9 percent, or 12,935, spoke French• 3.6 percent or 11,729, spoke ChineseSource: U.S. Census Bureau, 2006-08 American Community Survey
CLEVELAND, Tenn.-It wasn’t a weekday, and it wasn’t at school.
It was a Saturday in First Lutheran Church where Micah Debelak and other children like him – with at least one German parent – learned to name the different parts of the body in German.
A group of local Germans got together to start the German Saturday School, or Deutsche Samstag Schule, to immerse their children in the culture and language.
And the timing couldn’t be better, organizers said, with Wacker and Volkswagen coming to Bradley and Hamilton counties.