Language immersion classrooms: Programs are popular, diligence translates to performance
By Mercedes White, Deseret News
Ms Alisa Wu’s third grade class in Sandy looks like any other classroom in the country. The desks are lined in neat rows. Brightly colored pictures of letters and vocabulary words decorate the walls. The students read aloud a story from a primer. When they finish, they are lead in a music lesson by their teacher.
But this is no ordinary class.
The letters that cover the walls are Chinese characters. The story the class reads, entirely in Mandarin, is about an important Chinese holiday. And the song the eight-year olds are singing is a Chinese translation of a “Party Rock Anthem,” a popular American song. Ms. Wu’s class is not completing a unit on China, nor is their interest in Chinese language and culture a passing phase. They are part of a Mandarin language immersion program at Lone Peak Elementary.
- French education in demand in Louisiana – Nov. 16, 2011
- St. George school amid Utah’s dual-language charge – Oct. 21, 2011
- St. George school amid Utah’s dual-language charge – Oct. 19, 2011
- Chinese immersion programs in Utah continue to grow – April 13, 2011
- Utah leading the nation in dual immersion programs – Feb. 24, 2011
Wu’s class is part of a growing trend of language immersion classrooms. In 1981 there were fewer than 30 immersion programs in the country, today there are 448, according to a 2011 report released by the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL), a non-profit organization that advocates for foreign language instruction. States like Minnesota and Utah are leading the way with 52 and 58 schools offering language immersion options. American students are being educated in Spanish, French, Mandarin, Japanese, German, Arabic, and Norwegian.
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Mandarin Immersion Parents Council 
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