It’s with a heavy heart that I write this. The murders in Atlanta are fresh in everyone’s minds and this weekend there will be Asian solidarity marches and celebrations across the country. For those of us with children in Chinese immersion programs, this is hitting especially hard. Many of our families are Asian themselves, others…

Guest post by Craig Watts Utah has over 16,000 students in Chinese dual-language immersion programs, and its first cohort of K-12 students is now finishing their senior year in high school. At this critical juncture, Utah parents have formed Utah Mandarin Families, a statewide parent network to support Chinese learning and to brainstorm Chinese-related career paths. In its first month, Utah Mandarin…

A nice article about a mom going to Beijing with her Mandarin-immersion educated daughter, pre-pandemic. The Chinese Lessons By Jill Bronfman People told me that my daughter was fluent in Chinese, but before we went to Beijing together I used to have to take their word for it. She had been in a Mandarin immersion…

A lovely piece by a woman who grew up Mandarin-speaking in the United States, lost her Mandarin and then found it again when she had children. And always nice to have one of my Mandarin immersion articles linked to in the New York Times. Due to the COVID lockdown I haven’t done a 2020 “State…

The Asia Society’s annual conference on Chinese language teaching is April 15-17. It’s virtual this year and thus cheaper and easier to access for teachers. This tends to be where a lot of advances in immersion teaching are introduced and shared, so it’s worth making sure your school’s teachers know about it and can attend.…

新年快乐! 春节快乐! Happy year of the Ox. It’s not quite the usual New Year, which includes visiting family, making dumplings, handing out red envelopes or going see a special program at your Mandarin immersion school. But it’s still a happy occasion. And the glory of Chinese New Year (also known as the Spring Festival) is…

Hello all, I’ve been writing this blog since 2007 and though COVID shutdowns have slowed it some point, I have no intention of stopping any time soon. I do, however, have a rare request. My oldest daughter, a proud Mandarin immersion graduate, is now in her second year of college at Wellesley and is looking…