Never mind how well-spoken you might be now, you will never again be as adept with languages as the day you were born. Indeed, the youngest person in any room is almost always the best linguist there too. There are 6,800 languages in the world and since you can’t know where you’ll be born, you have to pop from the womb able to speak any one of them. That talent fades fast—as early as 9 months after birth some of our language synapses start getting pruned away. But well into your grammar school years, your ability to learn a second—or third or fourth—language is still remarkable.

That, it turns out, is very good for the brain. New studies are showing that a multilingual brain is nimbler, quicker, better able to deal with ambiguities, resolve conflicts and even resist Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia longer. All of this is prompting public schools to implement language immersion programs for kids as young as kindergarteners, as I report in the new issue ofTIME; nowhere is that more evident than in Utah, where 20% of all public schools offer K-12 dual-language instruction, with students taking half their classes every day in English and half in either Spanish, French, Mandarin or Portuguese. To date, representatives from 22 other states have come to Utah to learn more about the program.

Read more: http://science.time.com/2013/07/18/how-the-brain-benefits-from-being-bilingual/#ixzz2Zi1B7N6A

I just started a tab on this blog for parent groups around the country, as we now have so many. If your group isn’t hear, please drop me a line and I’ll add it.

https://miparentscouncil.org/mandarin-immersion-resource-pages/

Which really captures the feeling young expats have there these days. This video makes me nostalgic for Beijing and I haven’t even lived there. It’s so much the place that people in their 20s are going today to make their fortune. It feels a little like Prague did for those of us who were in college in the 80s….

Many programs, as well as Mandarin immersion as a whole, have benefited from FLAP grants. However the  Foreign Language Assistance Program was not reinstated in the Fiscal year 14 budget, and the $75m request for the Well Rounded Curriculum grants to State Education Agencies falls more than $400m short of the six grant programs it would replace. JNCL-NCLIS opposes this request and continues to advocate for restoration of the full $25m funding for the Foreign Language Assistance Program. –

If you’d like to find out more, and perhaps write to your congressperson about the need for more, not less, foreign language support, please read more here.

A great program for summer reading for kids in immersion! Thanks to the Utah Dual Language Immersion Program and STARTALK for creating it.

Click here to access.

STARTALK 2013

WELCOME!

TO THE UTAH CHINESE DUAL LANGUAGE IMMERSION STARTALK 2013 SUMMER WEBSITE

American students regularly participate in English summer reading programs because the benefits are well documented; summer reading programs help students achieve higher levels of English language proficiency, increase their reading proficiency, and accelerate their study in English Language Arts during the school year. This STARTALK program will offer the same benefit to students enrolled in Chinese dual language immersion programs through a summer reading program incorporating authentic Chinese literature.

The stories we have chosen include a selection of stories the children in China learn in school. As our students investigate and read these stories, they will improve their Chinese reading skills and enhance their Chinese language learning with cultural understanding as they enjoy learning about and reading the Chinese folktales that have enriched generations of Chinese children.

WHO CAN PARTICIPATE?

This website is open for anyone to use. The stories are leveled for students who have from one to four years of experience in a Chinese immersion program. Grade 1 is for students who have just finished first grade, Grade 2 for students who have just finished second grade, and so on. Each week for the next five weeks, a new story will be added to the website at every grade level. For students who want a challenge, have some fun with a story from a different grade level.

WHAT WILL YOU FIND?

STORYTELLING – Watch videos of our Chinese Dual Language immersion teachers tell the stories.

READ ALONG – Students can test their reading ability by looking at the text from the story and try it on their own OR they can use the audio helps and have the story read to them, line by line.  This is a great practice tool that will help students learn to read and practice their tones.

PRINT BOOK – Print out copies of the stories for students to read and color. Create activities with the printouts by “whiting out” characters that can be filled in as a writing practice.

ENGLISH TRANSLATION FOR PARENTS – Need help understanding the stories? Use these translations to help you discuss the stories with your Chinese immersion student.

ONLINE ACTIVITIES – This is the most interactive and dynamic page of the website. Thanks to Quizlet.com, we have created a series of learning tools designed for each story and the characters students should focus on learning.

PRINTABLE ACTIVITIES – Mostly for writing practice, this page provides printable writing activities for the focus characters. A few of the stories include printable assessment pages.

This is an excellent introduction to the idea of ‘comprehensible input,’ the basis for language immersion teaching in the United States.

Watch the video here.

Bilingual education gives Alhambra Catholic school new life

Mandarin teacher Mandy Chou shows students how to add. | Photos by Alfred Dicioco