Mandarin Immersion Parents Council

Information for parents of kids in Mandarin immersion education

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Minnesota has 5 Mandarin immersion public schools

Siblings Cassidy and Cormac Calcaterra wear their uniforms at Yinghua Academy in northeast Minneapolis. Yinghua opened in 2006 as the first Chinese immersion charter public school in the Midwest. It is one of five in Minnesota.
Siblings Cassidy and Cormac Calcaterra wear their uniforms at Yinghua Academy in northeast Minneapolis. Yinghua opened in 2006 as the first Chinese immersion charter public school in the Midwest. It is one of five in Minnesota. / Special to the Times by Bryna Godar
Written by Bryna Godar
Second-grade Chinese immersion class teacher Melody He takes part of her class through a section in their math vocabulary book in 2010 at Madison Elementary School. / Jason Wachter, jwachter@stcloudtimes.com

At Yinghua Academy in northeast Minneapolis, children’s art lines the walls — thumbprint trees, traced hands, self-portraits. It looks like most elementary school hallways, but the kids have signed their artwork twice, once in English and once in Chinese characters.

Yinghua Academy opened in 2006 as the first Chinese immersion charter public school in the Midwest. Students learn a curriculum ranging from history to math, all in Mandarin Chinese. Teachers instruct students completely in Chinese for kindergarten and first grade. In second grade, one English class is added, and by sixth grade the curriculum is taught half in English and half in Chinese. Signs on classroom doors ask visitors to not speak English to the teachers in front of students.

Read more here.

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