Author: Elizabeth Weise

Charter school offers immersion in Chinese, Spanish Nelson Garcia 3 hrs ago DENVER – In the old Whiteman Elementary building, teachers are doing something never done before in the Mile High City. They’re teaching kids every subject in Mandarin. “We really felt that there was definitely a strong demand here in Denver for this kind of…

Oct 30: Shu Ren Fall Festival and Bilingual Book Fair Come celebrate fall with Shu Ren International School’s Fall Festival and Book Fair! Join us for a day of fun and games to support the East Bay’s Mandarin/English dual immersion school: – Magic Show! (at 11 am) – Bouncy House and other games and prizes…

I had no idea their program was so big, and so well-established. They have 12 schools involved, from elementary to high school. They started  in 1982, just a year after the Chinese American International School in San Francisco. I believe this makes them the oldest on-going Mandarin immersion public system in North America. From their…

Of course our friends up in Canada have a different school system to contend with (and decades of strong immersion programs in French and English to point to) but it’s still interesting for folks in the United States to look at how parents can organize to push for Mandarin immersion in their schools. === http://www.mandarinforbcschools.org/…

A nice story from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism about Mandarin in Los Angeles. —– From Chinatown to China: Learning world languages in L.A. schools Contributor By Jacquie Levy Seated in a folding chair in the middle of Chinatown’s historic West Plaza, seven-year-old Aidan Garner’s short legs dangled his little feet above…

From the Asia Society’s latest newsletter: Asia Society has identified and networked some of the strongest Chinese language programs across the country – and is bringing their best practices to you. Confucius Classrooms How to start a Chinese language program. Find online resources to build stronger programs. Get involved! Support language learning in the United…

Note that this debate is not about immersion, but about a class or two a week in elementary school.  Clearly, kids in immersion actually learn to understand and speak Mandarin quickly (reading and writing, of course, take longer).  But interesting that Mandarin’s so popular these days that schools are adding an hour a week in…