Mandarin Immersion Parents Council

Information for parents of kids in Mandarin immersion education

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  • Chapel Hill’s Mandarin program faces axe due to budget issues

    Chapel Hill-Carrboro parents: Don’t end Chinese language program

    BY TOM HARTWELL, CORRESPONDENT
    CHAPEL HILL – A report that recommends suspending dual English-Chinese language classes met strong criticism and disappointment from parents and students involved in the program.The Mandarin Chinese dual language program got a ringing show of support from than 100 parents and students at Thursday’s meeting of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Education.

    They wore red to show support for the program, which puts elementary, middle and high school students in a language immersion setting in which half of their classes, like math and science, are taught in Mandarin Chinese.

    No one would have guessed the program’s future was in jeopardy a year ago, when the school board resolved to double the size of program at the elementary school level. But in conjunction with redistricting for the new elementary school opening in 2013, a study determined the costs associated with bringing Chinese educators were higher than anticipated, and that the program was not viable.

    Please read more here.

  • Portland’s Mandarin immersion middle school subject of documentary

    It’s good to remember every once in awhile that most of our MI programs are in schools with many different strands. Here’s a nice story about one such strand at Portland’s Hosford Middle School.

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    PORTLAND, Ore. — For one local school principal, basketball is much more than a game.

    Principal Kevin Bacon is using basketball to “iron out” social and cultural issues at Hosford Middle School in southeast Portland. It’s a sixth-through-eighth-grade school known for its global outlook and Spanish and Mandarin language immersion programs.

    And now Bacon’s story is the subject of a documentary called “Lessons of Basketball and War.”

    “It was kind of a blessing to know from an early age what I wanted to do,” Bacon told KOIN with a laugh. “And that, of course, was if I didn’t make it to the NBA.”

    It seems like Bacon has known forever that he’d be an educator. And he is.

    At Hosford Middle School, he noticed several years back that a handful of young East African refugees — from war and famine — were putting his skills to the test. These teens, in a new home in a new school and in a new country, were coming from places like war-torn Somalia. And they were finding assimilation into America difficult. As the new documentary points out, some girls still carried tribal differences with them into the the school halls.

    Please read more here.

  • Delaware joins Chinese Language Consortium

    Delaware is one of four state education agencies, four Chinese Flagship Centers and numerous school districts from across 10 states that are working collaboratively to implement K-12 Chinese education pathways over the next three years.

    Lead by the Brigham Young University Chinese Flagship Center and Utah State Office of Education and funded by a $1 million federal grant from the Department of Defense’s National Security Education Program, the consortium is working to create, implement and disseminate what will become a national model of a well-articulated and replicable K-12 pathway for Chinese language study. By college graduation, students should achieve professional level (ACTFL Superior) proficiency.

    Please read more here.

  • New Jersey rejects Mandarin immersion charter by one-vote margin

    SOUTH BRUNSWICK — By a one-vote margin, townships officials rejected plans for a Mandarin Chinese immersion charter school that had been opposed by residents in three towns.

    Founders of the proposed Princeton International Academy Charter School, which spent two years seeking local approvals, saw their request for a land use variance narrowly defeated when the zoning voted about 12:30 a.m. today.

    With five votes necessary to pass, only four board members voted in favor of the plan and three opposed it.

    Please read more here.

  • 2,000 Mandarin immersion students in California schools

    Dual-language lessons growing in popularity

    March 22, 2012 | Eleanor Yang Su

    Flickr/heraldpost

    At Chula Vista Learning Community Charter School, students are taught lessons every week in a combination of Spanish, English and Mandarin. The public school, which has more than 400 students on its wait list, is hoping to eventually add a fourth language, the principal says, to better prepare pupils for the global economy.

    “I think as we become more and more globally aware, we’re realizing that kids need to be prepared to be competitive in world markets,” said Principal Jorge Ramirez. “Kids need to be multilingual and multiliterate.”

    From Chula Vista to Laguna Niguel and Sacramento, public schools are creating dual-language immersion programs at a fast pace. The California Department of Education estimates there are 318 bilingual immersion programs in the state, up from 201 in 2006.

    Please read more here.

  • Introducing J-MEC, formerly known at the MIPC

    Readers of this blog know that it is maintained by Scott Olson and Elizabeth Weise,  parents with children in the San Francisco Unified School District’s Mandarin immersion program and some of the original founders of the Mandarin Immersion Parents Council in San Francisco.

    The MIPC is in the process of ‘re-branding’ itself to become 金山中文教育协会, or J-MEC. You can read about it below. You’re also welcome to donate to support our cause by going to the Starr King school website and clicking the Donate Now button. Just note on the form that you’re donating for J-MEC (i.e. the Mandarin immersion program at all three schools) rather than just for Starr King.

    The MIPC actually  maintains two blogs, this one, which focuses on all things Mandarin immersion, and a SFUSD Mandarin-specific site here.  This site will keep the name MIPC as it’s national in scope, while our local site will now be J-MEC or the Jinshan Mandarin Education Council.

    Either way, we’re all about supporting kids in Mandarin immersion programs, where ever they may be!

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    Introducing

    金山中文教育协会

    Jīnshān Zhōngwén Jiàoyù Xíehuì

    Jinshan Mandarin Education Council

    San Francisco’s Mandarin immersion program was launched at Starr King Elementary School in 2006 with just 26 students. A second arm of the program was begun at Jose Ortega Elementary school in 2007. In the past six years it has grown to include six grades at two schools, with now over 300. Next year it will grow yet again, to include our first class of 6th graders at Aptos Middle school.

     

    The Mandarin Immersion Parents Council began as a loose coalition of parents at both schools in 2006. By 2007 it had evolved into a strong coalition between parents at our two schools. The group has held multiple meetings, workshops and get-togethers for parents in the program over the years. In 2011 we began working with staff at Aptos to lay the groundwork for our middle school program.

     

    As our schools have grown, so has the breadth of our families as well as interest in the program around the country and around the world.  In recognition of the benefits of Chinese language acquisition, not just for our children, but for society at large, we have re-branded the “Mandarin Immersion Parent Council.”

     

    Our new name is is 金山中文教育协会, which means San Francisco Mandarin Education Council and is pronounced Jīnshān Zhōngwén Jiàoyù Xíehuì.

     

     

    For those who don’t speak Mandarin:

     

    金山, Jīnshān, (Gold Mountain) San Francisco

    中文Zhōngwén, Chinese

    教育Jiàoyù, Education

    协会Xíehuì, Council

     

    In English, it’s the Jinshan Mandarin Education Council, or J-MEC for short.

     

    It is under this name that we have created a non-profit organization that can support our Mandarin immersion program in all three schools. We are using the San Francisco Schools Alliance, a non-profit that supports public education in San Francisco, as our fiscal sponsor.  In addition to parents at the three schools, we are recruiting members of the Mandarin-speaking community for our board, in recognition of the need and desire of businesses and community groups to support such programs in our public schools.

     

    J-MEC realizes in the era of fiscal hardship in our public school system, we are lucky that San Francisco Unified School District is able to create such a special program.  Nevertheless, there are still needs that the school district cannot fund in order that our three schools have the supplies and support necessary for our Mandarin immersion students to graduate bilingual, bi-literate and bi-cultural.  J-MEC is dedicated to working closely with the SFUSD administration, principals, teachers, parents, and students at Starr King, Jose Ortega and Aptos Middle school to identify and fund these critical gaps.

     

    Come join us!

    Jinshan Mandarin Education Council: Supporting Mandarin immersion since 2007

     

  • A Chinese Language Teacher’s Experience in American Public Schools

     

    A Chinese Language Teacher’s Experience in American Public Schools
    By Meiching Chang

    Meiching Chang's photoThroughout all these years in elementary and high schools, I have built up my teaching confidence. Sometimes I still feel lost or lonely on the road of teaching Chinese, but I remind myself of all the Chinese teachers out there working as hard as I am. I wish all Chinese teachers good luck on this path. I know we will succeed – it’s not a matter of if, but when. Read more

    一位中文老师分享美国公立校经历和心得     

     

    通过这些年来在美国几所小学和高中的经历，在教学上我已经相当自信。每当我觉得有些迷惘或者寂寞的时候，一想到有那么多中文老师都和我一样在辛勤努力地工作、那么多人曾在我前行的路上一直帮我，我就不敢有一丝懈怠。我希望所有中文老师在教学这条道路上顺风顺水。遇到挫折时，也请你跟我一样坚信：我们终有一天会成功。加油！中文全文

     

    Please read more at the Mandarin Institute here.