American Councils for International Education is pleased to announce that the
application for the Intensive Summer Language Institutes has been posted online.
This program provides fully funded fellowships for U.S. classroom teachers to
spend six weeks overseas studying intermediate and advanced-level Arabic and
Chinese in Egypt and Mainland China. The Intensive Summer Language Institutes
are funded by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S.
Department of State and administered by American Councils for International
Education. The program is open to current K-12 teachers and community college
instructors of Arabic and Mandarin Chinese, as well as to students enrolled in
education programs preparing them to teach these languages. Applicants must be
U.S. citizens and non-native speakers of Arabic and Chinese in order to qualify.
To apply, please visit http://apps.americancouncils.org/isli2011

Program Dates:
June 21-August 6, 2011

Program Benefits:
-Intensive language training
-Peer tutors
-Cultural enrichment activities and excursions
-Ten hours of graduate credit through Bryn Mawr College
-Pre-departure orientation
-Full-time resident director
-Room and board
-Books and shipping allowance
-Visa fees and travel insurance
-International and U.S. domestic airfare

Application Deadline:
March 4, 2011

For more information, please contact Alena Palevitz at
apalevitz@…

Alena Palevitz
Program Officer, Teacher Programs,
Arabic and Chinese Intensive Summer Language Institutes
American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS
1828 L Street, NW, Suite 1200
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: 202.833.7522
Fax: 202.833.7523
Web: http://www.americancouncils.org/isli

Yu Ming Charter School is a tuition-free Mandarin immersion public charter school which will open in Fall 2011 in the East Bay.

Yu Ming Charter School’s mission is to:

• Provide an academically rigorous college preparatory program (K-8)
• Graduate bilingual students via two-way dual immersion in Mandarin Chinese and English
• Nurture intellectual curiosity and international perspective
• Develop young people with compassion, moral character, and a sense of responsibility for the community and environment.

Yu Ming Charter School is accepting applications for kindergarten and first grade classes for the inaugural 2011-2012 academic year. The application deadline is February 10, 2011. Applicants are strongly encouraged to attend an information session to learn about Yu Ming’s unique immersion model.

For more information on the enrollment process and a list of information sessions, please visit here.

They’ve also got a survey up for parents who would consider the school  here.

Beyond Linguistic Proficiency

Students as Linguists and Ambassadors

By Jeff Wang

“If you want one year of prosperity, then grow grain. If you want 10 years of prosperity, then grow trees. But if you want 100 years of prosperity, then you grow people.”

Quoting a Chinese proverb, US President Barack Obama offered this toast to his guest, visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao, at a state dinner on January 19. The two heads of state had more than a full plate of issues to discuss during Mr. Hu’s recent visit to Washington, many of which were urgent and thorny. However, as Mr. Obama suggested in his toast, to ensure the long-term prosperity of both nations, we must focus on people, especially the next generation of young people that will shape a shared future.

Read more, and watch the video, here.

Mandarin for kindergartners planned for Dist. 67

By Donald Liebenson Special to the Tribune Yesterday at 12:06 p.m.

Lake Forest School District 67 could become the latest among a small group of public schools in the country with a Mandarin immersion program starting in kindergarten.

If there’s enough interest from parents, an English-Mandarin program would be offered in one kindergarten class and one first-grade class beginning in the fall.

Incoming kindergarten and first-grade parents are invited to attend an meeting to hear about the program at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 3, at the school district’s administrative offices at 300 S. Waukegan Road, Lake Forest.

Two additional meetings providing further information will be offered at 7 p.m. Feb. 23 and at 10 a.m. Feb. 24, both at the administrative offices.

The program would offer instruction in English for half of the school day and the Mandarin for the other half, with plans to expand the program through the fourth grade.

The approach is modeled on those at two Michigan elementary schools that have had “quite the success with students being able to converse (in Mandarin) by the third grade,” said District 67 Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Andy Henrikson.

Henrikson said both schools are being supported by Michigan State University, which he called one of the premier U.S. universities assisting school districts by bringing teachers in from China and developing curriculums.

more here.

Proposed Mandarin Immersion Pilot – Grades K & 1 for 2011-12

Lake Forest School District 67 is exploring the option of offering one dual-language (English/Mandarin) kindergarten class and one first grade class beginning this coming fall.

The program will offer half-day instruction in English and half-day instruction in Mandarin through fourth grade.  There has been significant research on the benefits of beginning world language instruction in the earliest grades and using an immersion method of instruction (the teacher uses the new language 70-100% of the time).

Why Mandarin? Some economists predict that China’s economy will surpass even the United States’ sometime in this decade. Yet, less than 5 percent of U.S. public schools have a Mandarin program.  Mastering this language will set our Lake Forest graduates apart for college admission and future career opportunities.

Interested parents may use this webpage to get the most up-to-date news about the program. Parents with additional questions are also  encouraged to contact Assistant Superintendent Andy Henrikson at ahenrikson@lfschools.net or 847-989-0118.

More here

http://worldlanguage.weebly.com/

Knowledge Universe reaches $1.6 billion in revenue

STORY BY LINDA BAKER // PHOTOS BY LEAH NASH

On the second floor of a KinderCare center in downtown Portland, eight preschoolers are coloring pictures of Chinese characters while listening to their teacher speak in Mandarin. On the other side of the room, which is decorated with parasols and Chinese lanterns, another group is interacting with a different teacher — who is speaking in English. Eventually the groups will switch, with the entire class spending half the day learning in Chinese, the other half in English.

Now in its third year, the Mandarin immersion program got its start when Knowledge Universe, KinderCare’s parent company, came across a model program while scouting acquisitions in Singapore. “We thought this was a really innovative and important way to deliver dual language, which is something the United States is particularly remiss in,” says Elanna Yalow, executive vice president at Knowledge Universe. “It is much easier to develop second-language competency at a young age,” Yalow says. “So we brought that program over and implemented it in several locations.”

KinderCare’s Mandarin immersion program is a window on the world of Knowledge Universe, a global education services conglomerate that has its U.S. headquarters in Portland. The company, which employs 40,000 people on three continents, is the largest single private provider of early childhood education services in the country. It also has the biggest market share in the United Kingdom, Malaysia and Singapore, where the company’s global headquarters are located.



There are 19 elementary and secondary schools with French immersion programs in the City of Vancouver. Two-thirds of them — no surprise this — are on the west side. French used to be the international language of diplomacy: It’s now the language of the upwardly mobile.

There were last year just less than 4,800 French immersion students in the city. The program is wildly popular. Waiting lists exist at every school in which it is offered.

It is, I think, a nice fiction that this demand springs from an appetite to embrace the nation’s official policy of bilingualism, or from the love of language.

But the reality, I think, is more practical and class-conscious. Parents believe their children, ensconced within the sequestered world of French immersion, will receive a better, more refined education than that of the hoi polloi. It’s a private school mentality at work within the public school system. And it’s more about cachet than conjugating verbs.

In a city where only 9,300 people identified themselves as having French as their mother tongue, having 19 schools offering French immersion is an enormous dedication of scarce educational funds.

Yet this is also a city in which 51 per cent of the population identifies itself as “visible minority” hailing mostly from East and South Asia, and in which the rise of China and India as world powers is felt more immediately than almost anywhere else in the world.

So how many immersion courses in any of those Asian languages does the Vancouver school board offer in response to that new reality?

One.