Mandarin Immersion Parents Council

Information for parents of kids in Mandarin immersion education

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  • St. Cloud, Minn. program looks at middle school

    St. Cloud school district looks to expand immersion program

    By Dave Aeikens • daeikens@stcloudtimes.com • October 2, 2010

    Sixteen third-graders in the immersion program at Madison Elementary School sang in Chinese with their teacher last week.

    Almost three years from now they will leave Madison for middle school, ready for the next stage of the St. Cloud school district’s language immersion program.

    Four years into immersion programs that provide instruction mostly in Mandarin Chinese at Madison and Spanish at Clearview Elementary School, efforts by St. Cloud school district and its partners are turning toward what happens when the children who have stayed in the programs hit middle school and high school.

    “What the discussion needs to be is how is it going to run in the middle levels?” said Bob Huot, principal at North Junior High School, where Madison’s immersion students will go in three years. “We just need to find out what is the best programming for students.”

    Read more here.

  • TV story and video on Denver’s immersion school

    Charter school offers immersion in Chinese, Spanish

    Nelson Garcia 3 hrs ago

    DENVER – In the old Whiteman Elementary building, teachers are doing something never done before in the Mile High City. They’re teaching kids every subject in Mandarin.

    “We really felt that there was definitely a strong demand here in Denver for this kind of program,” said Kristy Fantz, co-founder of the Denver Language School.

    Within the Denver Language School, nearly half the students are enrolled in a full immersion program teaching them Mandarin Chinese. The other students are in a full immersion Spanish program, all tuition-free as a Denver Public Schools charter.

    “We use the language 100 percent in teaching not only the language arts, as well as other subject contents,” said Jian Lin, Chinese program director.

    Students learn math, social studies, and science all in Mandarin. Students are not allowed to speak English in class.

    “We use the interactive white board to show the elements,” said Lin. “The hands-on activities always help the kids to understand.”

    The Denver Language School currently has grades kindergarten through second grade. It will eventually be a K-8 school as the program adds a level each year.

    Read the rest of the article here.

  • Berkeley Bilingual Book Fair

    Oct 30: Shu Ren Fall Festival and Bilingual Book Fair

    Come celebrate fall with Shu Ren International School’s Fall Festival and Book Fair!
    Join us for a day of fun and games to support the East Bay’s Mandarin/English dual immersion school:
    – Magic Show! (at 11 am)
    – Bouncy House and other games and prizes for the whole family
    – Homemade snacks
    – A bilingual book fair featuring a wide selection of hard-to-find Chinese children’s books, DVDs and educational games, and English books for all ages provided by Scholastic.

    The festival will be held at Shu Ren, 1333 University Ave., Berkeley from 10:30-4:00 on October 30.

    Shu Ren is also offering school tours every other Wednesday throughout the fall starting October 6, and will host several open houses. The first Open House is on October 21.

    Learn more about Shu Ren’s exciting dual immersion curriculum for Pre-K through 3rd grade, after school program, summer camp and adult Mandarin classes at http://shureninternationalschool.com

  • Wow, check out Mandarin in Edmonton, Canada

    I had no idea their program was so big, and so well-established. They have 12 schools involved, from elementary to high school. They started  in 1982, just a year after the Chinese American International School in San Francisco. I believe this makes them the oldest on-going Mandarin immersion public system in North America.

    From their website:

    At the elementary level (Grades 1 to 6), the subjects taught in English are: English Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies. Subjects taught in Chinese are: Chinese Language Arts, Mathematics, Art, Health, and Physical Education. Music may be taught in both languages.

    Chinese Language Arts is an optional course at the Junior High (Grades 7 to 9) and Senior High (Grades 10 to 12) levels designed to improve listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in Chinese with emphasis on conversational skills. Studies include a variety of short stories, novels, plays, and poetry. Art and cultural activities are also included. Computer skills in Chinese word processing are practiced when possible. Chinese Language Arts carries the same credits as other optional courses.

    Chinese Language Arts at the Senior High level meet the language requirements of the International Baccalaureate (I.B.) Program of studies. Students who wish to write the I.B. Exam in Grade 12 will have that option. This course may also be taken as an option for credit towards a High School Diploma and may be accepted for entrance requirements at post-secondary institutions.

    Very impressive.It also looks as if their parent organization, the Edmonton Chinese Bilingual Education Assoc., is really strong and supportive. Check out their web site here.

    We’d love to hear from anyone in Edmonton about the program, how it works and how it’s progressed. And because you’ve got K – 12 students, we’re very interested (always) in what reading material your upper grade students like.

  • Parent group working to push for Mandarin in B.C.

    Of course our friends up in Canada have a different school system to contend with (and decades of strong immersion programs in French and English to point to) but it’s still interesting for folks in the United States to look at how parents can organize to push for Mandarin immersion in their schools.

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    http://www.mandarinforbcschools.org/

    Welcome to MandarinForBCSchools.org! This website was created by parents for parents to share information about bilingualism and to help bring a K-12 Mandarin bilingual education program to our public school system.  We are presently three parent groups, located in North and West Vancouver, Vancouver, Tri-Cities, Burnaby and Richmond.  If you would like to give your child the gift of bilingualism, join us!

    You can see their meet up page here.

  • Mandarin comes to Los Angeles

    A nice story from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism about Mandarin in Los Angeles.

    —–

    From Chinatown to China: Learning world languages in L.A. schools
    Contributor

    By Jacquie Levy

    imageSeated in a folding chair in the middle of Chinatown’s historic West Plaza, seven-year-old Aidan Garner’s short legs dangled his little feet above the ground as a concentrated expression washed over his face. He dipped a calligraphy brush almost as long as his whole arm into a bowl of black paint, and meticulously copied a series of connected lines from the paper beside him onto the newspaper in front of him. As an American-born, second-grade student, Garner had just done something that most American adults will never be able to do: he had written the Mandarin Chinese character for ‘moon cake’. As his mother looked proudly over his shoulder smiling, Garner declared, “I’m writing Chinese, it’s fun and easy!”

    On that particular Saturday evening in Chinatown, the smell of Chinese food was especially strong and the clamor of voices was exceedingly loud. A diverse crowd of all ages and ethnicities from all over Los Angeles came to experience the 72nd annual Chinese celebration of the new autumn harvest moon, known as the Mid Town Moon Festival. While there were lots of exciting, kid-friendly activities like performances by Shaolin warriors and contortionists, Chinese cooking demonstrations, zodiac face painting, craft tables and ping-pong contests, many children were drawn to a more subdued activity: the Mandarin calligraphy workshop hosted by the UCLA Confucius Institute.

    A young volunteer at the station who referred to himself as “the white guy who speaks Chinese,” enticed curious children and adults with the simple question, “Wanna give it a try?” Intrigued by the challenge, participants sat down at the U-shaped setup of folding tables that was scattered with newspapers, paint, and pictures of Chinese words commonly associated with the Moon Festival. George Yu, the Executive Director of Chinatown’s Business Improvement District, watched his 13-year-old daughter Elizabeth Yu and her 12-year-old friend Felicia Hano receive some personal Mandarin instruction from Qin Huang, a petite and expressive Confucius Institute volunteer, who also teaches Mandarin at a local middle school.
    Read more, including stuff about the two immersion elementary schools in Los Angeles, here.

  • Helpful links from the Asia Society

    From the Asia Society’s latest newsletter:

    Asia Society has identified and networked some of the strongest Chinese language programs across the country – and is bringing their best practices to you.

    Confucius Classrooms

    How to start a Chinese language program.

    Find online resources to build stronger programs.

    Get involved! Support language learning in the United States.

    Learn more about the Confucius Classrooms Network.