From the Asia Society newsletter

The Arts as Inquiry

Animate Language Learning 

(Asia Society Museum)

By Heather Clydesdale

When students of Chinese explore art in conjunction with language, they not only have fun, they unravel abstract concepts, deepen cultural understanding, and build language proficiency. There are many ways to enliven lessons, whether by encouraging students to create their own masterpieces, or by helping them investigate and analyze artworks in museums or online collections.

Kathleen Wang, founder and principal of the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School in Massachusetts advocates infusing the arts throughout the curriculum, explaining, “Many subjects or concepts are so abstract and packed with content that it is difficult for students to retain and effectively use. Students must smell, taste, hear, touch, or see abstract subjects and concepts so that the curriculum is more meaningful and more connected to students personally.”

Wang and her faculty blend the arts into all subject areas to create what Wang calls “an environment that is full of sensory experiences.” In their K–8 classrooms, language and culture go hand-in-hand through storytelling, poetry, movement, the visual arts, drama, and music.

HsiuWen Hsieh, a teacher at Pioneer Valley explains, “In my second year at the school, I realized we are not teaching Chinese language. Instead we are using Chinese as a tool to teach our children to understand themselves, and learn about life.” Hsieh describes how the children study botany through art, creating large paper trees with personalized leaves. In other classes, they sing songs, fabricate costumes, craft birthday boards, erect stages for puppet shows, write stories, practice calligraphy, design storybooks, and perform dramatic pieces.

Read more here.

This is about a summer school program, but near the end they say a school in 2012-2013 is possible.

Camp immerses young students in Chinese language

By JACKIE BORCHARDT Star-Tribune staff writer | Posted: Sunday, July 24, 2011 1:45 am

DAN CEPEDANing Zhao gives a high five to a student during an exercise at a full-immersion Chinese language camp at Park Elementary School in Casper.

The second-graders circled around squares of colored paper a few inches apart on the floor.

Each clutched a smaller, colored 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.

“Lán sè,” she repeated. The students, holding green colored pieces of paper, were incorrect.

Not “lù sè,” Zhao said, “lán sè.”

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.

Read more: http://trib.com/news/local/casper/article_13d67f7c-680c-54fe-8fb7-88d4d4a02b35.html#ixzz1T8xTQap2

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.