Author: Elizabeth Weise

Wednesday, March 05, 2014 :: Staff infoZine By Cathryn Walker – For those who haven’t made spring break plans this year, it’s not too late. The first lady is traveling abroad and inviting students across the world to join her, at least virtually. Washington, DC – infoZine – Scripps Howard Foundation Wire – Michelle Obama visited students of…

A Preschool in Warsaw, Poland plans to launch a Mandarin immersion options next year, and hopefully build it up to a primary school over time. They are also beginning  Spanish and English immersion classrooms, says founder Anna Maliszewska. You can find out more about the school here. The school’s motto is “Autonomy, Education, Languages.”

Lake Forest, Illinois offers a cautionary tale of the unintended consequences that can spring from Mandarin immersion. Lake Forest is a small, affluent and attractive suburb about five miles north of Chicago. It’s a town with great schools. So great that every year Chicago families with young children nearing kindergarten age pack up and move…

Summer Camps for Mandarin Chinese Learning: Summer 2014 By Lelan Miller 孟樂嵐 Spring vacation is coming up soon, meaning now is the time to start planning and applying to summer camps specific to Chinese language learning. This is also a good time to keep an eye on the Startalk site which will soon be posting…

Pearson Singapore Pearson is a large international producer of educational materials. Their Singapore office has created multiple iPad Mandarin books. They can be read simply as books, they can read the story aloud in Mandarin or the reader can touch individuals phrases to hear how they’re pronounced. There are over 50 titles available, each at…

CLEF 2014: A Single Themed Symposium Fit Your Chinese Language Programs to the Common Core State Standards In order to better serve the community,  the organizing committee of Chinese Language Education Forum (CLEF) has decided to re-shape this annual event. From this year on, CLEF will be held in the Spring rather than at the end of…

From our friends at the Asia Society’s Chinese Language Initiative   by Chris Livaccari How many Americans have studied four or five years of French or Spanish in school and yet can barely manage a sentence of that language once we hit adulthood? Why do Americans continue to be ridiculed and sneered at by people…