The Lake Oswego School District will offer two half-day Kindergarten Mandarin Immersion classes in 2011-12, contingent upon hiring qualified staff and on achieving sufficient enrollment to support the program.

These classes will be located at River Grove Elementary School . Instruction time is 50% in Mandarin and 50% in English. The literacy component of instruction employs the Read Well program, which is the district’s early childhood reading curriculum.

The Kindergarten Mandarin Immersion Program is a stand-alone program. Enrollment in this program does not guarantee placement in next-level programs that may be added to LOSD offerings. To date, no commitment has been made to continue this program beyond the kindergarten level.

Enrollment in the Kindergarten Mandarin Immersion Program will be conducted by lottery. Those wishing to participate in the lottery must submit their application to the District Administration Office no later than 3:30 PM on Friday, July 15, 2011. Parents interested in enrolling their students should complete and submit the application form as soon as possible.

See their post here.

Charter School Battle Shifts to Affluent Suburbs

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Founders of a proposed Mandarin-immersion charter school meeting in a South Orange, N.J., home. From left, Jutta Gassner-Snyder, Nancy Chu, Tom Piskula and Tiffany Boyd Hodgson.

By WINNIE HU

Published: July 16, 2011

From the CAIS Institute blog

U.S. expatriates pursue American dream in China

“I’m living the American dream, just not in America,” says the Cleveland native, 29, who brews through the night with unusual ingredients like Sichuan peppercorn to produce craft beers unique in China, and the world.

Setzer typifies a new breed of young Americans, China-savvy and Chinese-speaking, who share the pluck, patience and grit necessary to pursue their diverse dreams here.

After South Koreans, U.S. citizens had formed the second-largest national group among the nearly 600,000 foreigners living on the Chinese mainland at the end of 2010, says China’s national statistics bureau.

At a time when many Americans back home worry whether fast-rising China is out to eat their lunch, the number of Americans living on the Chinese mainland has reached a record high of 71,493, according to Chinese census bureau figures released in April.

In addition, more than 60,000 Americans live in Hong Kong, according to the U.S. State Department. A 2005 estimate of 110,000 Americans living in China included Hong Kong residents. Another 430,000 people from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau lived in China at the end of 2010, but Beijing does not count them as foreign residents.

Those wishing to join them face challenges ranging from a lengthy licensing process, language barriers, intrusive government agencies and disrespect for intellectual property rights in which political concerns sometimes trump economic ones.

The 2011 China Business Climate Survey of American commerce in China conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce found China is a complex business culture where burdensome licensing procedures and indigenous innovation policies are seen as favoring Chinese companies over foreign ones. Yet 83% of those surveyed said they still planned to increase investment in China operations this year.

Some Americans in China have seen decades of dramatic change, from radical Maoism to cutthroat capitalism. Today, newbies arrive daily to take up jobs or hunt them down, in what has become the world’s second-largest economy behind the USA‘s. Many work for Fortune 500 firms or U.S. agencies. Others come to teach, study, volunteer, travel, blog and party.

To boost mutual understanding in what is an often tense relationship between the nations, Washington and Beijing are ramping up people-to-people exchanges, including a drive to send 100,000 U.S. students to China over the next four years.

“There are a lot of really bright young Americans who are here in business or studying, and they are building great bridges between the USA and China,” says Thomas Skipper, minister counselor for public affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

More here.

As part of its on-going and excellent coverage of Mandarin immersion charter school issues in New Jersey, Patch.com has a nice article today about a state education task force hearing in New Jersey today and some of the issues being raised there.

One of the most fascinating tidbits is this, about the state’s acting Education Commissioner:

Cerf has indicated that “boutique” charters such as Mandarin immersion may not be suited for districts that are “humming along.”

Charter schools raise lots of issues both for parents, communities and school districts. But what’s interesting here is the idea that Mandarin immersion is a “boutique” program (ok, we’ve got to admit that) and that such things aren’t needed in districts that are “humming along.”

Which raises a question that comes up at times — is Mandarin immersion simply a magnet program that districts use to pull parents in the schools they wouldn’t normally send their children to? Or is it also a value-add that districts can use to enrich their offerings to students and families.

How does it work in your school district?

Note to those who don’t hang out in the tech/DIY world: A ‘maker’ is anyone who’s ever “fixed anything at home, tackled a craft project, knit a skarf, plant a garden, combined several things into something new, you are a Maker. Have you painted a portrait, sculpted with clay, pressed leaves in a book? Did you get the WiFi working in your home, program your remote, setup a home theatre, install outdoor lighting, program your lawn sprinkler? Are you a DIY enthusiast, mechanic, machinists, scientist, engineer, hacker, gamer, read Instructables, Popular Science/Mechanics or Make/Craft magazine? If so you DEFINITELY ARE a maker!” 

From Make Magazine

By Philip Torrone

Nǐ hǎo 你好! Permanently on my desk, and everywhere I go is an iPad/iPhone app called Pleco, which has my custom flash cards that I use to quiz myself about 300 Chinese (Mandarin) characters. I’m getting pretty good with the help of a weekly instructor found via Craigslist, daily walks through Chinatown in NYC, and a website called Memrise. In less than a month I’ve been able to specifically translate (a lot of) the data sheets for products I’m sampling/purchasing for my job at Adafruit Industries, and for fun/downtime I’m translating some of the Chinese graffiti in Blade Runner (I always wanted to know what they said).

At this point, you might be asking, “Why are you wasting your time learning such a hard language? Computers can do it — why don’t you hire a translator?” Or “the USA will make electronic components again, really!” Well, I’m going to tell you why and how I’ve decided to devote the next 2+ years or so of my free time to learning (Mandarin) Chinese with my own deadline to be fluent by 2016.

In this week’s article I’ll talk about why I think it’s a good idea for any maker to consider picking up some new language skills and specifically what I’m doing. A lot of my articles tend to be about the future (I can’t wait to look back on these 5 years from now). So, yes, I think a lot of us are going to find speaking, reading, and writing the language of the soon-to-be biggest economy in the world and, who makes almost everything, is a good idea. It’s something to consider learning, starting now, particularly for makers, especially the ones who run maker businesses.

Read more here.