"In the U.S. most students at community colleges never have the opportunity to study abroad because they can't afford it," said Joseph Overton, coordinator of political science and program director of the language program called the Freeman Project.

"Students at community colleges need to have these kinds of opportunities. So many work and are busy paying their tuition. But, (in this program), we'll take care of that. I don't know of any other community college in the country that has a program like this. It's something so totally new that people look at us and say 'this is too good to be true.' "

The program is supported with a $1.2 million grant over two years from the Freeman Foundation and will offer 60 students the opportunity for free, intensive language study as a springboard to careers enhanced with multiculturalism.

The program, launched in the fall semester with a study of the Japanese language, is available to students from any of the state's community colleges.

Student Jon Cannella, a former truck driver who is studying Japanese, already knows it will help him in a social work career specializing in work with the elderly.

"When Alzheimer's sets in, they often revert back to childhood when they were speaking Japanese," said Cannella of the elderly immigrant group he expects to work with. "It's really important to have someone able to understand them and know a little bit about their culture so they feel as comfortable as possible toward the end. Our kupuna are so important to us. That's why I want to focus on that."

Housed at Kapi'olani Community College and the brainchild of Leon Richards, KCC senior academic dean for Arts and Sciences, the program offers a one-semester study of a single language for five hours a day, five days a week. That's followed with more intensive language and cultural exchange study in the foreign country, plus several hours a week during the exchange semester doing volunteer service tied to the student's major.

At the end of the first semester, students earn 12 language credits; at the end of the second semester abroad, they'll earn 12 more, giving them a total of two years of language credits.

"If students are going to function in the 21st century, they need to learn a foreign language and be exposed to different cultures, especially Asian cultures," said Overton.

"Richards thought the way foreign languages are taught they don't really prepare students to learn the language," said Overton. "So he came up with this."

The program is based on immersion language principles that emphasize gaining fluency quickly. Directors prefer students not have taken previous courses in the language they want to study, to come to it fresh.

"We're teaching it entirely differently, like an English as a Second Language Program, where the students are learning the language to speak it in useful conversation, in survival conversation," said Overton. "They're also learning to read it and learning the kanji. They're not going to get fluent in one semester but that's one of the reasons they'll be going to Japan, China or Korea. They're going to be living in that country and will have a chance to constantly practice the language."

Cannella, 36, and the oldest among the students, has just finished finals for the Japanese program this semester and is already thinking about departure for Japan on Jan. 16. He'll be away from his wife and children — 3 and 5 — for almost four months, but he has already been teaching them Japanese phrases.

"I want to school them in Japanese now," he said. "It's funny because my children speak Hawaiian (they've been in Hawaiian immersion language school) and they're pretty well spoken in English and now they're learning Japanese, too. When I come back I'm going to look into placing them into a Japanese language school after regular school to give them every opportunity to have things I didn't have. They're bilingual now and I'd love them to be trilingual."

Yenny Fernando, a 20-year-old Leeward Community College student in the program, is also excited about the next stage. Fernando is already fluent in three languages — English, Tagalog and the central Philippine dialect Kapamtangan — and believes Japanese is a good addition for her chosen field, medicine.

"I'm going to stay here in Hawai'i and that will be very helpful," she said. "I was thinking of getting my bachelor's degree in psychology and would graduate and then transfer to medical school. "