Casper, Wyoming Mandarin immersion enters second year

Students are now entering their second year of the dual language Chinese immersion program at Paradise Valley Elementary School; a program that started last year with a kindergarten class of 44 students.

Principal Aaron Wilson, PVES says, “when there are kids present our mandarin teachers only speak mandarin.”

For full immersion of the foreign language, students spend half their day studying subjects in English, and the rest of the day learning subjects taught in a new language.

Lisa smith, parent of a Kindergarten student in the program says, “Ms. Lee never speaks English to them, she only speaks mandarin. So for half of the day, they are just taught in mandarin Chinese.”

But why teach this language? Why not teach a different tongue? Principal Wilson says mandarin is identified as a critical language by the US government.

Principal Wilson says, “in order to have diversity in Casper with the languages, knowing that park would eventually come onto Spanish, we had enough interest of parents who wanted their children to learn Mandarin.”

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