Nice article in the Seattle Times about their Mandarin immersion school – Beth
Math lessons in Mandarin? Local schools go global
In a growing number of Seattle-area classrooms, students spend half their school day immersed in a language other than English. One example is Beacon Hill International School in Seattle, where kindergartners can study in Spanish or Mandarin Chinese.
By Linda Shaw, Seattle Times education reporter
KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Mandarin-immersion teacher Ying Ying Wu offers instruction to first-grade students Abby Zhou, left, and Cyrus Davies at Beacon Hill International School.
KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Nat Beaumon, a Beacon Hill International School first-grader, listens to his teacher’s instructions in Mandarin, a Chinese language. The class is part of the school’s language-immersion program.
For nearly an hour, no one speaks a word of English in this first-grade math class.
Not the teacher, Ying Ying Wu, who talks energetically in Mandarin’s songlike tones.
Not the students — 6- and 7-year-olds who seem to follow along fine, even though only one speaks Mandarin at home.
Even the math test has been translated, by Wu, into Chinese characters.
At Beacon Hill International School, many students learn a second language along with their ABCs by spending half of each school day immersed in Mandarin Chinese or Spanish.
Mandarin Immersion Parents Council 
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