Information for parents of kids in Mandarin immersion education
Click the “post” link below to see the full interview:
FOR years, researchers in bilingualism have been touting striking findings about how bilingualism affects the brain. Two of the most memorable involve “executive control” and delayed dementia. With the first, bilinguals have shown that they are better able to focus on demanding mental tasks despite distractions. In other studies, it has been estimated that bilinguals see the onset of dementia, on average, about five years later than monolinguals do.
This week comes new evidence* for the pile: researchers led by Roberto Filippi of Anglia Ruskin University have found that young bilingual pupils did a better job answering tricky questions with a noisy voice in the background than a monolingual control group did. The study was small (just 40 pupils, only 20 in each group). But its robustness is helped by the diversity of the bilinguals, who spoke Italian, Spanish, Bengali, Polish, Russian and others in addition to English. The experimenters tried to distract the pupils with random unrelated recordings in English (which all the pupils spoke) and Greek (which none of them did). The bilinguals did significantly better at ignoring the Greek distraction. (They did just a bit better with the English one.)
Please read more here.
So darling it will bring a tear to your eye.
Elementary students in Broadway’s dual-language, Mandarin & English Program receive a rigorous education in language arts, social studies, mathematics, and sciences in adherence with the Common Core State Standards. Students receive instruction across all subject areas in both English and Mandarin for equal parts of the day. Fluency in either English or Mandarin is required for incoming Kindergarten and 1st Grade students. Prior exposure to Mandarin is not required. The Mandarin Immersion Program is currently offered for Grades K-3, expanding by one grade level each year. Broadway’s Mandarin Immersion Program is operated under the direction of Principal, Susan Wang and is located in Los Angels, CA. Learn more: http://www.broadwayelementary.org/mi
Student rendition of Let It Go in Mandarin Chinese.
Lyrics:
bái xǔe fān fēi yī piàn yín sè shì jiè
白 雪 紛 飛 一 片 銀 色 世 界
fàng yǎn wàng qù, shì chén jì
放 眼 望 去 是 純 淨
yáo yuǎn gúo dù fàng zhú zì wǒ
遙 遠 國 度 放 逐 自 我
gū dān jí mò, měi yī tiān
孤 單 寂 寞, 每 一 天
sī xù xiàng kuáng fēng hū xiào, jù làng bān péng pài
思緒 像 狂 風 呼 嘯, 巨 浪 般 澎 派
wú fǎ zài yā yì
無 法 再 壓 抑
zùi hòu de rěn nài
最 後 的 忍 耐
bù yào kào jìn, bù yào xiāng xìn
不 要 靠 近, 不 要 相 信
guāi guāi tīng huà, ān fèn yī rú wǎng xí
乖 乖 聽 話, 安 分 一如 往 昔
yǐn cáng jiān qiáng, jù jué biǎo lù
隱 藏 堅 強, 拒 絕 表 露
páo xiào sǔo yǒu
拋 下 所 有
fàng kái shǒu, fàng kái shǒu
放 開 手, 放 開 手
bù xū yào rèn hé lǐ yóu
不 需 要 任 何理 由
fàng kái shǒu, fàng kái shǒu
放 開 手, 放 開 手
bù lǐ hùi xīn zhōng jiā sǔo
不理 會 心 中 枷 鎖
hái yǐ wéi, céng jīng zài hū gùo shéi
還 以 為 曾 經 在 乎 過 誰
ràng bào yǔ fān téng
讓 暴 雨 翻 騰
cóng bù wèi jù chéng fú bīng shuāng fēng xǔe
從 不 畏 懼 臣 服 冰 霜 風 雪
nǐ wǒ zhī jiān yǒu jù lí
你我 之 間 有 距離
yī qiè biàn de miáo xiǎo
一切 變 得 渺 小
nà yíng rào xīn tóu de kǒng jù
那 縈 繞 心 頭 的 恐 懼
yǐ jīng bú zài zhòng yào
已 經 不 再 重 要
kān kān wǒ yào, rú hé qù zùo
看 看 我 要 如何 去 做
cè shì jí xiàn, néng fǒu tū pò
測 試極 限, 能 否 突破
méi yǒu dùi cùo, méi yǒu shù fù, qǐ fēi
沒 有 對 錯, 沒 有 束 縛, 起飛
fàng kái shǒu, fàng kái shǒu
放 開 手, 放 開 手
cóng jīn wǎng hòu, yǒu wǒ zhǔ zǎi
從 今 往 後 有 我 主 宰
ràng tā zǒu, ràng tā zǒu
讓 它 走, 讓 它 走
júe bú zài shòu shāng hài
絕 不 再 受 傷 害
xīn shì jìe, zài wǒ yǎn qián
新 世 界, 在 我 眼 前
ràng bào yǔ fān téng
讓 暴 雨 翻 騰
lì liàng qiáng dà, cóng dì dǐ zhí cuàn shàng yún xiáo
力量 強 大, 從 地底直 竄 上 雲 霄
wǒ de xīn céng céng bīng fēng, rùi lì sùi piàn hěn nán xiáo
我 的 心 層 層 冰 封, 銳利碎 片 很 難 消
xīn niàn dòng bīng jīng lì qǐ, tiān dì jiāng gǎi biàn
心 念 動 冰 晶 立起, 天 地 將 改 變
qián fāng de lù děng dài
前 方 的 路 等 待
gùo qù bú yào líu liàn
過 去 不 要 留 戀
ràng tā zǒu, ràng tā zǒu
讓 它 走, 讓 它 走
Filmed in Venice Beach, California
Special Thanks to Jeffrey Negus & Eric Baldwin for Cinematography
Community members who want to know how a proposed Mandarin immersion charter school could affect the Menlo Park City School District asked lots of questions but learned there are still a lot of unknowns involved in the answers at a meeting on Thursday (Oct. 9) at Oak Knoll School in Menlo Park.
A group of about 50 people met at Oak Knoll School in Menlo Park to hear district Superintendent Maurice Ghysels, district board President Joan Lambert, and board member Maria Hilton talk about what they know, and don’t know, about the proposal.
A public hearing on the proposal will be held at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 14, at Encinal Elementary School’s Multi-Use Room, 195 Encinal Ave. in Atherton.
Please read more here.
khui@newsobserver.comOctober 12, 2014 Updated 6 hours ago
Monica Arbeláez works with Sawyer Hunter in her kindergarten class at Jeffreys Grove Elementary School in Raleigh on Wednesday. Students in kindergarten and first grade at Jeffreys Grove take all of their core subjects in Spanish. PHOTOS BY ETHAN HYMAN — ehyman@newsobserver.com |Buy Photo
Jeffreys Grove Elementary offers a Spanish full immersion program and Stough Elementary offers a Mandarin full immersion program. This means students in the program take their core courses – language arts, math, social studies and science – solely in that language.
Hodge Road Elementary offers a dual immersion Spanish program, meaning students alternate taking their core courses in Spanish and English.
School administrators want to magnetize Daniels Middle School and Broughton High School so that the Stough and Jeffreys Grove students can continue their studies and other students can take global studies classes. No recommendation has been made yet on where to send the Hodge Road students.
RALEIGH — A plan to expand Wake County’s magnet school program is drawing complaints that the development is a case of school leaders favoring older, established neighborhoods in Raleigh.
School administrators want Jeffreys Grove and Stough elementary schools in Raleigh and Hodge Road Elementary School in Knightdale to become magnet schools so that families across the district can attend the language immersion programs at the schools. But administrators also want Daniels Middle School and Broughton High School in Raleigh to become magnet schools to create a K-12 immersion/global studies theme.
Critics question magnetizing Broughton and Daniels, both of which are located near Cameron Village and serve some of Raleigh’s most affluent neighborhoods.
“Wake County is pandering to the wealthy inside-the-Beltline families,” said Allison Backhouse, an Apex parent and critic of the school board. “They’re going to use taxpayer money to keep the children of the wealthy.”
I know it can sometimes seem the only place I post about is Utah. But dear heavens, they are really the place in the country that’s doing immersion the most intensively. This is just one town, with a population of 87,461, and it’s got eight immersion elementary schools. That’s more than some states!
I don’t know how I missed these, but someone has finally created some interesting, age-appropriate stories for our Chinese immersion students. They’re great!
Here’s their website
Check out the titles:
The Secret Garden
Sherlock Holmes
The Monkey’s Paw
The Country of the Blind
The Sixty-year dream (Rip Van Winkle)
As anyone who read this blog knows, I’m a HUGE fan of reading as a way to increase fluency. But there hasn’t been a lot for our kids to read. Well, these guys in China have gotten the memo and more. Buy their books. They’re also available on Amazon as ebooks. I just bought the Sherlock Holmes story for $9.94 and the Chinese comes through beautifully.
From their website
Why Graded Readers?
After years of studying Chinese, many people ask, “Why can’t I speak Chinese? I’ve been studying for years but I still can’t speak!” Fluent speaking only happens when the language enters our “comfort zone.” This comfort only comes from experience with the language. The more times you meet a word, phrase, or grammar point, the more likely it will enter your comfort zone.
In the world of language research, the experts agree that learners can acquire new vocabulary through reading if the overall text can be understood. Decades of research indicate that if we know approximately 98% of the words in a book, we can comfortably “pick up” the 2% that is unfamiliar. Reading at this 98% comprehension level is called “Extensive Reading.”
Research in extensive reading has shown that it accelerates vocabulary learning and helps the learner to naturally understand grammar. Perhaps most importantly, it trains the brain to automatically process the language thereby leaving space in the memory for other things. As they build reading speed and fluency, learners will move from reading “word by word” to starting to process “chunks of language” at a time. A defining feature is that it’s less painful than the “intensive reading” commonly used in textbooks. In fact, extensive reading can be downright fun.
Graded readers are the best books for learners to “extensively” read. Research has taught us that learners need to “encounter” a word 10-30 times before truly learning it, often many more times for especially complicated or abstract words. Learners can read a graded reader because the language is controlled and simplified to their level, as opposed to reading native texts, which are inevitably slow, difficult, and demotivating. Reading extensively with graded readers allows learners to bring together all of the language they have studied and absorb how the words naturally work together.
To become fluent, learners must not only understand the meaning of a word, but also understand its nuances, how to use it in conversation, how to pair it with other words, where it fits into natural word order, and how it is used in grammar structures. No textbook could ever be written to teach all of this explicitly. When used properly, a textbook introduces the language and provides the basic meanings, while graded readers consolidate, strengthen, and deepen understanding.
Without graded readers, learners would have to study dictionaries, textbooks, sample dialogs, and simple conversations until they have randomly encountered enough Chinese for it to enter their comfort zones. With proper use of graded readers, learners can tackle this issue and develop greater fluency now, at their current levels, instead of waiting until some period in the distant future. With a stronger foundation and greater confidence at their current levels, learners are encouraged and motivated to continue their Chinese studies to ever greater heights. Plus they’ll quickly learn that reading Chinese is fun!
Mandarin Immersion Parents Council 