Information for parents of kids in Mandarin immersion education
For the 2014 list, please go to the web page of
金山中文教育协会/ Jinshan Mandarin Education Council
This is the parent-run non-profit that supports Mandarin immersion programs in the San Francisco Public Schools at Starr King Elementary, José Ortega Elementary and Aptos Middle school.
[This is from the Broadway Elementary School Social Media/PR coordinator, which just shows you what a powerhouse school it is that they even have a parent volunteer who does that. Here’s the page for their parent group, Dragon Sprouts.–Beth]
ENROLLMENT OPENS AT BROADWAY
Enrollment applications for the Mandarin Immersion 2014–15 Kindergarten cohort are now available in the Main Office at Broadway Elementary School. The one-page application can be picked up Monday through Friday between 8:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.
The new Mandarin show Fun Fun Elmo got over 5 million views on its Youtube channel.For the first time, hosts from China’s CCTV children’s channel will mingle with Sesame Street Muppets thanks to a collaboration with Sesame Workshop on a Spring Festival-themed special.
The one-hour special series, entitled Happy New Year, is airing every night this week with various themes designed to encourage kids to learn more about the Chinese Spring Festival. During the special, there is a segment called Chinese New Year, where Elmo, Cookie Monster and Lily chat with CCTV hosts about special traditions and customs. The Chinese New Year segments will be re-broadcast from January 31-February 6 on CCTV Children’s Channel.
The 10 segments feature CCTV children’s hosts Ju Ping, Dong Hao, Jin Guizi, Huang Wei, Xiao Lu, Red Apple and Green Bubble, Mr. Sesame, Sister Moon, Du Yue and Zhou Zhou. The themes include monster year, bid farewell to the old and usher in the new, dinner on the eve of New Year, the Year of the Horse, lion dance and Lantern Festival.
Photo by Bill Zurheide
French School students Daphne Bishop and Deangelo Robinson, who are now first graders, play together in kindergarten. The St. Louis Language Immersion school district now has three campuses – the French, Spanish and Chinese schools – and a fourth one is on the way.
Posted: Thursday, January 9, 2014 12:05 am
By Rebecca Rivas
A group of second graders at the French School, a local language-immersion charter school, recently fought for the right to use school lockers – and won.
Speaking in French, the students presented their arguments to Head of School Conrad Wildsmith.
Leading an issue-oriented campaign was part of their class curriculum, but the second graders took it a step further to fundraise for the cost to pay for new locker keys – an expense that kept the school from allowing students to use the lockers previously, said Rhonda Broussard, president and founder of the St. Louis Language Immersion Schools.
The second graders’ campaign is one example of what sets the immersion schools’ curriculum apart from other schools, she said.
“Students are expected to be actors,” she said. “They are expected to recognize needs and take actions – not wait for someone else to do it for them.”
In December, Broussard learned that its French School and Spanish School have joined the ranks of 1,100 elementary schools worldwide, 400 in the U.S., and only three others in Missouri to offer the International Baccalaureate Organization’s Primary Years Programme (PYP) curriculum.
Please read more here.
When Mandarin Chinese Language Immersion Magnet School gets the new building promised to it, the new campus will be at the corner of West Alabama and Yorktown, not at the school’s current location in Bellaire.
“That decision has been finalized; we will move,” Principal ChaoLin Chang said. “Now we’re in the process of working with our architect and project advisory team on the building’s plans.”
Mandarin Chinese Language Immersion Magnet School opened in August 2012 at Gordon Elementary School, 6300 Ave. B, for pupils in pre-kindergarten through second grade.
Please read more here.
Ni hao, Forest Hills Elementary School: You’re going to learn to speak Mandarin Chinese.
Starting this fall, Forest Hills Elementary plans to offer a language immersion program that would let incoming kindergarten students study Mandarin Chinese. The program would be similar to the school’s Spanish language immersion program, which parents and school officials say gives the students a “full brain experience.”
Forest Hills Elementary decided to try to offer a Mandarin Chinese immersion program earlier this school year. Principal Deb Greenwood said she wanted to offer Mandarin Chinese because of the increasing number of people across the world who speak the language. About 20 percent of the world’s population speaks Mandarin.
Please read more here.
Mandarin Immersion Parents Council 