Whenever 9-year-old Coryn Harris hears people speaking different languages, she thinks it would be fun to have that talent.

So she signed up for a City School District summer program where students learn Chinese and Swahili, becoming part of a national push to get kids learning languages the government has deemed key to international relations.

The school district is in its third year offering the STARTalk summer program, which is part of the federal government's National Security Language initiative.

The goal of the federal program is to encourage schools to teach students languages--Arabic, Chinese, Dari, Hindi, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, Turkish and Urdu--that are not typically taught in classrooms. The program allows students in kindergarten through college to start learning basic dialect and culture, and aims to spark an interest that they might pursue later. That is especially important among younger elementary school students, who do not typically take foreign language classes.

"It gives them exposure that they would not get otherwise," said David Baez, who runs the school district's program.

Rochester is the only school district in the area to offer the program, and the only one in the state to offer Swahili. Most of the 11 programs in New York are in New York City.

The district opted to offer Chinese and Swahili classes to build on programs already offered during the regular school year and to maximize its resources.

The four-week summer program is open to students in fourth through sixth grades. Students choose one of the languages to study, and spend three hours a day learning vocabulary, going on field trips and eating traditional foods to help them learn about the cultures. About 50 students are participating.

During one session earlier this week, a teacher quizzed students in the Chinese class on basic vocabulary words such as milk and water. The students matched pictures of objects with flashcards that show the words, both in Chinese symbols and a phonetic pronunciation.

"I see lots of people speaking these other languages and I wanted to speak another language, too," said Coryn, who will be in the fifth grade in September.

Down the hall, students practiced exchanging traditional greetings in Swahili, a language spoken in some countries along the east coast of Africa.

Signs with vocabulary words hang from various objects in the hallways, to remind students of the words for everyday objects.

"They're going to leave not only with language skills, but a better understanding of these cultures," Baez said. "It's about preparing these kids to be citizens of the 21st century."