Information for parents of kids in Mandarin immersion education
A Spanish immersion program for pre-schoolers in Brooklyn, NY. (SONI SANGHA)
She found a private school that was different. At Escuela Bilingüe Internacional, half the student body is Latino, the teachers come from Spain and Latin America and the entire school speaks Spanish exclusively.
Though the article doesn’t mention it much, Avenues is an immersion school. It has two strands, one Spanish and one Mandarin. It got a lot of press last year before it opened. Here’s the New York Times’ latest on it.
Beth
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One night last winter, more than 120 parents filed into the black-box theater at Avenues: The World School in Chelsea, to learn about what their kids were eating. Ever since the $85 million for-profit start-up opened its doors in September, food had been a divisive issue. After the first week of classes, a group of parents sent a seven-page e-mail detailing concerns: there were not enough snacks, not enough “worldly” snacks like seaweed, zucchini bread with quinoa flour and bean quesadillas (so long as the beans came from BPA-free tin cans). Unlike other New York City private schools, with their decades of institutional wisdom, Avenues was founded on the premise that its parents were partners in building a new community. So it was ready to hear them out.
Please read more here.
The Mandarin Immersion Program at Bergeson Elementary in Capistrano Unified School District is still accepting applications for incoming 2013-14 Kindergarten.
This magnet program offers a unique educational experience with the goal of developing biliteracy, bilingualism, and biculturalism in elementary students. It is an educational model that provides academic instruction in English and Mandarin Chinese. The specific goals of this language immersion program are for students to develop high levels of language proficiency and literacy in both program languages, to demonstrate high levels of academic achievement, and to develop an appreciation for and an understanding of diverse cultures.
This is a very popular program and space is limited. The first Kindergarten class is filled but there are still a few spots left in the 2nd Kindergarten class!
Parents can contact Marion Bergeson Elementary School directly with any questions regarding the program. Interested parents will need to make an appointment to meet with Principal Scholl for an information/orientation session prior to submitting an Open Enrollment application by calling the Bergeson office at 949/643-1540.
Children must be 5 years old by October 1, 2013, in order to apply for the 2013-14 school year.
This is from the Casper Star-Tribune.
There is a popular perception in America that in the Chinese language, the word for “crisis” and “opportunity” is the same. Though most Chinese philologists disagree, introducing Chinese as a language immersion program in Natrona County School District has seemed to be both a crisis and opportunity for Casper.
Recently, the Natrona County school board approved a Mandarin Chinese program beginning in the fall at Paradise Valley Elementary School.
This was one-third the number of dual-language immersion programs that some parents and proponents had hoped for. And it was one too many for some concerned parents.
But Chinese in the public schools is both a crisis and an opportunity.
We support parents, teachers and leaders in the community who believe that more foreign language instruction is necessary in public education. We also subscribe to the notion that introducing foreign language at the junior high or high school level is far too late.
Dual-language programs are hardly new and they have a proven record throughout public education in America. That’s why it makes sense to support a program, especially in a world economy that demands fluency in multiple languages.
Please read more here.
There was a reply here.
Published April 29, 2013
Fox News Latino
A Spanish immersion program for pre-schoolers in Brooklyn, NY. (SONI SANGHA)
She found a private school that was different. At Escuela Bilingüe Internacional, half the student body is Latino, the teachers come from Spain and Latin America and the entire school speaks Spanish exclusively.
by Lelan Miller
Many school districts are either implementing or considering the implementation of Chinese immersion schools as evidenced by the number of reports of new schools and programs coming in almost weekly, if not daily. However still many more school districts do not have such programs due to many reasons: inadequate funding, lack of parent and administrator interest, or in some cases just simply the culture and outlook of a particular school district or city.
This article will address ways we can advocate for Chinese immersion schools, or at the very minimum, Chinese language classes throughout all levels of our schools.
In order to create interest in establishing any programs targeted at Chinese language learning, there needs to be a great deal of planning and involvement in creating interest in the language and culture of all Chinese-speaking countries and areas. By including all Chinese-speaking countries and areas, we create an all inclusive atmosphere of respect and learning and decrease the possibility of alienating those who feel singled out due to preference for one writing system over another or for a dialect such as Cantonese, and so forth. The newly established Chinese immersion program at Doss Elementary School of Austin, Texas has a sort of coat of arms so to speak that includes flags of Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Macao, and the PRC. It is also important to create interest in areas within the US and Canada that may have significant Chinese populations so that administrators, parents, and students do not feel compelled to see Chinese language study as a means of driving economic and cultural activity outside the US and Canada.
Igniting interest in the Chinese language and culture will require involvement of a good number of community groups, parents, businesses, and cultural organizations. Some parents volunteer with the schools to give talks and demonstrations of Chinese calligraphy, kungfu, and traditional instruments like the pipa and guzheng. Donating and giving books and materials that share information about Chinese speaking countries and their cultures to school libraries is another way of sparking interest. Some teachers become involved by learning Chinese themselves and incorporating this knowledge throughout the social studies curriculum and even after school programming. Another valuable resource is area community colleges and universities. For example, the University of Texas at San Antonio has a weeklong summer day camp just for middle school students that introduces them to the Chinese language. Middle school students in particular need more focus in our efforts to initiate interest in Chinese language programming because they are very close to choosing a foreign language path in high school.
Contact the foreign language coordinator of your local schools and express interest in Chinese language programming. Some foreign language coordinators are not willing to explore this idea due to many reasons. Reasons may include funding and student interest. However if there are a good number of students expressing interest, then there are options of “starting small” and then growing the program by offering Chinese as a club, after school class or activity, or even contacting a weekend Chinese school for assistance.
School administrators all the way from the superintendent down to the school counselors should be contacted and educated about interest in Chinese language programming. Many school counselors are in need of information regarding the value of Chinese language learning and often steer some student populations into languages that are perceived as “easy” such as American Sign Language or Spanish. The truth of the matter is there is no such thing as an easy foreign language (even ASL proves difficult to learn owing to its unique grammatical features, as many high school students have found out the hard way). Educating and informing school administrators is extremely important in paving the way to Chinese programming and ultimately immersion in our schools.
The key here is community involvement. By involving as many groups and individuals who are committed to the language and culture of Chinese speaking areas, efforts to establish Chinese language programs in the school can be successful.
Lelan Miller, 孟乐岚 is the founder of Mandarin Matters in Our Schools in Texas (MMOST) and master’s candidate in Chinese Language Pedagogy
Along with science and technology, schools nationwide have been pressed to add more world-language instruction to better prepare students for the global marketplace.
The U.S. State Department has helped to fund programs in languages it deems critical to national security, including Mandarin and Arabic, and last fall, the U.S. Department of Education for the first time produced a strategy to improve international education.
Many school districts, including Scottsdale, see world-language programs as a way to draw students. Last month, the district decided to transition Pueblo Elementary School into an all-immersion school, meaning that eventually, all the students in Grades preschool through 5 will spend half the day learning in Spanish.
Principal Art Velarde said the immersion program has proven so popular that it was no longer feasible to offer a non-immersion program.
“I only had 12 students in the conventional strand for kindergarten next year, and eight of those were there because they hoped to gain admission to the immersion program the next year,” Velarde said.
Other immersion programs are in the Cave Creek and Deer Valley unified school districts, where they’ve also proved to be big draws. In Cave Creek, overall kindergarten enrollment fell by about 20 percent for this school year when the district began charging tuition for the afternoon session, but the Spanish-immersion kindergarten at Desert Willow Elementary School had a waiting list.
Please read more here.
Mandarin Immersion Parents Council 