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Proposition 227 all but eliminated bilingual education in California schools in 1998. The law mandated that English be used as the primary language to teach non-English-speaking kids in schools. In recent years, a different form of secondary language acquisition has been gaining traction in Los Angeles public school system. They are called “dual language immersion” programs: classes are taught almost entirely in Spanish, Mandarin or another language, and they are designed to benefit both children who are learning English as a second language as well as those who are native English speakers.

KPCC’s Early Childhood Development Correspondent Deepa Fernandes has a piece today looking at one such program at Foster Elementary School in Baldwin Park. School officials there, mirroring what many researchers have found, say that kids in their dual language programs outperform those who are taught in just English-only classes.

If dual language immersion programs are so successful, why aren’t more California schools adopting them? What are some of the challenges and drawbacks? What are the benefits?

Guests:
Karen Cadiero-Kaplan, Director of the  English Learner Support Division at the California Department of Education

Roger Lowenstein, founder and executive director of Los Angeles Leadership Academy, a public charter school in Lincoln Heights that practices dual language immersion

Karen Nemeth, co-founder of Language Castle. She is a dual language immersion consultant who works with school districts across the the country

Please read and listen here.

LAFAYETTE — It will take some “seed money” to get a proposed immersion high school off the ground in Lafayette, but just how much is still unknown, said members of a committee studying what it would take to open the Lafayette school.

The committee’s work is outlined in Act 851, authorized by the Legislature in 2012. The legislation created an exploratory committee to examine the feasibility of opening an immersion high school in Lafayette in 2014-15 with French as the primary language and Spanish and Mandarin Chinese as other language options.

Please read more here.

Chinese language ‘camp’ for Casper kids could be beginning of long-term program
By JACIE BORCHARDT  Casper Star-Tribune
March 21, 2013 – 12:48 pm EDT

CASPER, Wyoming — The second-graders circled around squares of paper with different colors a few inches apart on the floor.

Each clutched a smaller, paper square and leaned forward, waiting for the teacher to name a color and, if it matched his or her own, be the first to touch the corresponding color in the middle.

The game would be a simple test of speed — if the colors weren’t given in Mandarin Chinese, foreign to the American students eagerly trying to win stickers for being the first to the square.

Teacher Ning Zhao, originally from China, said the color twice before a few students jumped up and lunged at the papers on the floor.

“Lan si,” she repeated. The students, holding green pieces of paper, were incorrect.

Not “lan si,” Zhao said, “lan si¨.”

A few seconds later, three students realized they held blue (lán sè) papers in their hands and lunged forward.

Things move fast in the Chinese language immersion program offered this summer through the Natrona County School District. Lessons are planned and taught by native speakers, and class is conducted solely in Chinese — crucial to the structure of the camp, funded through the STARTALK program of the federal Department of Defense.

Please read more here.

National Chinese Language Conference

From left: Lucy Lee, Robert Murowchick, Deborah Delisle, Marcos Aguilar

April 7 – 9 | Boston

Chinese language and culture experts take the main stage to discuss
China Across Subject Areas: The Career Connection
Equity and Access to a Chinese Language Education
The Future of Education in China and the United States
Plus
More than 70 breakout sessions and workshops
Two-hour workshops on teaching, assessment, technology, and research
Visits to Boston-area model Chinese language programs
> Register today

Does it Matter if Jon Huntsman is ‘Fluent’ in Mandarin Chinese?

November 2nd, 2011 by Chris Livaccari

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Jon Huntsman (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

Jon Huntsman, former Utah Governor and U.S. Ambassador to China — and current Republican candidate for president — is at the center of a discussion that reveals our assumptions about language perhaps better than any other: the idea of “fluency.”

In an interview with Stephen Colbert, Huntsman, often referred to as a “fluent” speaker of Mandarin Chinese, drew headlines when he used Mandarin to jokingly ask Colbert to be his running mate in the election. While his remark was not completely unintelligible to a Chinese speaker, it was not particularly grammatical by most standards (and he clearly misplaced the word “vice” in his sentence).Some commentators then jumped in to debate whether or not Huntsman was actually “fluent” in Chinese, perhaps ultimately missing the real point of the matter.

Please read more here.

Coming full circle on bilingualism
After rejecting her parents’ native Mandarin as a youngster, she’s come to value the connection to her roots. And she’s finding plenty of company among other young Asian Americans.

Children and adults listen to the reading of “The Giant Glowing Dragon” during the Mandarin story hour at the Crowell Public Library in San Marino. (Katie Falkenberg, Los Angeles Times / February 9, 2013)

By Cindy Chang, Los Angeles Times
March 16, 2013, 4:35 p.m.
Mandarin was my first language, but once I started school, I refused to speak it. As the only Asian kid in my class, I felt alien enough. I wasn’t about to bust out in another tongue, even in the privacy of my own home.

My parents were too laissez-faire to enforce a Chinese-only regimen, as my uncle did with my cousins. We soon switched to English instead of Chinese, forks instead of chopsticks. My mom made spaghetti for my brother and me, stir-fries and soups for my dad.

The one time I went to Saturday Chinese school, I told my parents I hated it and I wasn’t going back. That was the end of it. They never brought it up again.