The United States is not the only place that bans on Confucius Institutes, which often helped support Chinese teachers for immersion programs here, are going into effect.
The UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has backtracked on a pledge to close down 30 Chinese state-sponsored Confucius Institutes across the country.
During his unsuccessful bid last year to become leader of the Conservative party a move before his promotion to Prime Minister, Sunak had promised to ban operations at the cultural schools, which stand accused of spreading propaganda and spying on students, amid ongoing political tensions with China.
However last week, the UK government announced that it would be “disproportionate” to close the institutes, but a senior Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Sir Iain Duncan Smith called the u-turn decision “ridiculous.”
Many Chinese students will be familiar with Minnesota’s Concordia Language Villages summer immersion program. The Maplelag Resort in Callaway, Minn. was home to 森林湖・Sēn Lín Hú, Concordia’s home for the past 10 summers.
By Reid Forgrave, Minneapolis Star Tribune JUNE 12, 2023
Students study Chinese at Sēn Lín Hú, Concordia Language Villages’ Chinese village, at its longtime location at Maplelag Resort north of Detroit Lakes.
This week begins a beloved Minnesota summer tradition, where 3,000 kids from 50 states immerse themselves in learning at the Concordia Language Villages.
Most of the learning occurs at the main campus near Bemidji, though a few other locations are scattered at resorts up north throughout summer. But one of the villages now has an uncertain future: the Chinese Language Village is temporarily relocating to Concordia College in Moorhead after a fire destroyed its home at Maplelag Resort, north of Detroit Lakes.
GREENVILLE — In the wake of a large showing of community support after facing a decision to be phased out, it appears the Chinese Immersion program at Greenville Public Schools is now here to stay.
On Tuesday, Greenville Public Schools Superintendent Wayne Roedel emailed families of the school district’s Chinese Immersion students an update following a meeting with a task force team of teachers and administrators at Walnut Hills Elementary School last week.
Middle, high school and college students from 15 states took part in the Sing With Me Chinese Lyric Competition last year, with nine videos being chosen as the final winners.
In an effort to get students engaged with Mandarin through modern music, the contest challenged students to first write lyrics and the set them to music in popular genres such as rock-pop, rap, musical theater, hip-hop and R & B.
A total of 46 student teams took part, creating music videos. You can view the winners here. The organizers hope to hold another competition in the future if funding can be secured.
A wide range of songs
Some were heartfelt, others amusing.
“I crave peace in my heart,” sings a student from Post Oak Academy in Michigan. “When you look at me, what do you see? Do you see a person or only their dark skin?”
It takes a long time to write Chinese lyrics,” sang students from Washington Fields Intermediate School in Utah. “If you haven’t heard enough, don’t worry, more stories are coming.”
Then there are angsty songs like the one from students at Seaton Hall Preparatory School in West Orange, New Jersey. “Under the weight of sorrow the Earth weeps often. …. Weary from conflicts and separations, many disasters are hanging over Earth.
The creators of the contest hope to give students learning Chinese a better link to China’s popular culture.
“Many Chinese educators have commented that Japanese learners can read manga and anime and Korean learners have popular K-Pop bands. What can we offer from the modern teen culture that would appeal to the interests and curiosity of Chinese language learners?” said Dr. Shuhan Wang, one of the creators of the competition.
The Sing With Me Chinese Lyric Competition was conceived by Professor Sean X. Gao of the University of Delaware, Lisa Huang Healy of Executive Director of New America International Culture Corporation and Wang.
“Our vision is to use pop music to boost Chinese language education nationally,” Huang Healy said.
The organizers also put together a nice list of Mandarin language pop songs which could be a good jumping-off spot for students wanting to create their own Chinese language masterpieces.
Inside a sunny classroom in northeast Washington, D.C., Baby Snoopy, Thing One, Spiderman, and other children in costume are busy tucking into lunch when three visitors—including me—disrupt the feast. As I wave, awkwardly, one of the students offers a shy greeting: Ni hao.
That could be because I am Chinese—or because these children spend their days immersed in Mandarin. At the Washington Yu Ying Public Charter School, which I’m visiting on Character Day, 3- and 4-year-olds play, eat, and learn in Mandarin. (Older students are taught in both Mandarin and English.) Having reported on how deteriorating U.S.-China relations have throttled higher education and academic exchanges, I am here on a June morning with a related mission: to see if Washington’s hawkish China consensus has affected demand for Mandarin immersion programs in its own backyard.
CASPER, Wyo. — Chinese ethnic groups, traditional games and food were the focus of a school-year-end Culture Day celebration among CY Middle School students.
Culture Day on Thursday, June 8, honored nine years that the CY eighth graders in the Natrona County School District Mandarin Chinese Dual Language Immersion Program had spent gaining language proficiency and knowledge of China.
“It is a happy ending,” CY teacher Fengxiang Shi said.
It’s fitting, of course, as they’ve been immersed in the language for which their school is named since kindergarten.
Both student speakers at the school’s seventh annual commencement ceremonies Wednesday, Dexter Knight-Richard and Augusto Schwanz, acknowledged at the outset of their speeches that many in the audience would not understand the words — at least until they reverted to English. But the sentiments of what they were saying certainly came through.
Mandarin Immersion Parents Council 