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Her class of 3- to 4-year-olds follow her every move and immediately respond, raising one hand, then two, before clapping them together.

A typical morning routine in a French day care center, perhaps. But this isn’t a French day care center.

C’est Bethesda.

Moskal works for Jabberu, a children’s language center in Bethesda that teaches foreign languages to children as young as 12 months old. The center is filling a demand by parents who want their children to learn foreign languages at increasingly younger ages.

Becoming bilingual is simply a necessity, especially in the Washington metropolitan area, said Gideon Lachman, of Bethesda, whose son Micah, 3, is a student at the center.

‘‘You can hear people speaking other languages on the street all the time,” he said. ‘‘[Micah] has friends from South America and Germany who are growing up in bilingual households. It’s just a reflection of our changing culture.”

And learning to speak and comprehend a second language is best achieved during childhood, according to the University of Minnesota’s Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition.

Jabberu, which opened in January and teaches French, Spanish and Chinese to children ages 1 to 12 years old, capitalizes on the ability of youths to quickly absorb a second language.

‘‘Kids learn with real ease,” said Shelley Whiddon, Jabberu owner and co-founder. ‘‘They have the ability to form sounds, and make them sound native, instead of with an accent.”

But while the center’s classes for 1-year-olds may be new to the area, Montgomery County Public Schools have run language immersion programs for decades.

In 1974, MCPS began its first program, a French immersion class at Four Corners Elementary School in Silver Spring.

Its programs expanded to Spanish and Chinese and now serve more than 1,300 elementary school students and 300 middle schools students countywide.

The popular immersion programs are held at Burnt Mills, College Gardens, Maryvale, Potomac, Rock Creek Forest, Rolling Terrace and Sligo Creek elementary schools, and at Gaithersburg, Herbert Hoover, Francis Scott Key, Silver Spring International and Westland middle schools.

‘‘The benefit is really that students learn the same subjects, but also acquire a second language,” said Iran Amin, MCPS immersion project specialist. ‘‘Research shows learning through context is the best way to learn a language.”

And demand for such programs is only growing.

Years ago, every student who applied for a county program was accepted. Now at some of the schools, the waiting list can be as long as 50 to 70 students.

Jabberu plans to open a second location in Gaithersburg later this month and is adding Italian and Arabic classes.

Both the county and the center said an instructor’s body language is key to learning a new language.

‘‘[Teachers] have to make sure that they use gestures and body language, because we don’t want to frustrate the children,” Amin said. ‘‘After a few days of that, the children become comfortable in learning this new language.”

At Jabberu, songs and games about dragons and knights teach French to 3- to 6-year-olds with brains seemingly hardwired to soak up a new language. During snack time, the French words were flying.

‘‘Bon appetit,” said one mop-headed boy.

‘‘Merci,” a blond-haired girl said to Moskal after she helped her with a Gatorade bottle.

The training is most effective with the youngest of students, Moskal said.

‘‘It’s even more obvious with the 1-, 2- and 3-year-olds,” she said. ‘‘When they start to speak, it’s immediately in French.”

And for parents who struggled to learn a language during their middle or high school years, French spoken by a toddler is music to their ears.

‘‘I never had [this] opportunity when I was young,” Lachman said of his son’s early exposure to a foreign language. ‘‘I hope that starting early might make him less timid to speak the language when he’s older.”

Not that language exposure at a later age, or even in adulthood, is bad.

‘‘When you’re older, you have the advantage of more refined analytical skills, so you look at language like data,” said Donna Christian, president of the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington, D.C. ‘‘So adults can learn some things quicker, but also have a firmly engrained language sound system.”

But exposing children to a foreign language at an early age also opens their eyes to the world.

Melissa Fast, of Bethesda, said her daughter Zoe, 4, is learning about more than the French language.

During a recent trip to France, Zoe pointed out to her mother the differences between France and the United States, from the people to their friendliness.

‘‘It was clear she knew the differences,” Fast said. ‘‘To make children receptive of other cultures is critical.”