Mandarin Immersion Parents Council

Information for parents of kids in Mandarin immersion education

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  • Free screening of Speaking in Tongues in SF – Thurs. Sept. 2nd

    KQED TOWN HALL MEETING, SAN FRANCISCO

    Free film screening of SPEAKING IN TONGUES with panel discussion

    Thursday, September 2, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.

    KQED, 2601 Mariposa Street, San Francisco

    Panelists include:

    Kevin Chávez

    Dual Immersion / Special Education Supervisor

    Hydra Mendoza

    School Board Member and Mayor Newsom’s Education Advisor

    Lissa Kim

    Korean Dual Immersion Teacher

    Dr. Ling-chi Wang

    Co-Founder of the first Chinese Immersion program in the U.S. and

    Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley

    Marcia Jarmel & Ken Schneider

    Filmmakers, Speaking in Tongues

    Seating is limited. Please RSVP to: http://speakingintongues.eventbrite.com/

    Speaking in Tongues is an hour-long PBS documentary airing in September on KQED and across the country. It follows four diverse San Francisco immersion school students and their parents on their path to become bilingual.  Winner of the Audience Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

    SPEAKING IN TONGUES — 4 kids, 4 languages, 1 city, 1 world
    Watch the trailer: http://www.speakingintonguesfilm.info
    AUDIENCE AWARD for BEST DOCUMENTARY
    San Francisco International Film Festival
    COMING TO PBS  FALL 2010

    PATCHWORKS FILMS
    Marcia Jarmel & Ken Schneider, Filmmakers
    415.387.5912

    http://www.patchworksfilms.net

  • SF Mandarin Middle School – The Last Word?

    The San Francisco Mandarin Immersion Parents Council met yesterday evening to discuss the district’s draft middle school plan and what changes, if any, the group might like to propose to parents and the district leadership.  Here are my notes from that discussion…

    Summary

    The Jose Ortega parents are generally satisfied  with the current middle school plan, which sends their children to Aptos Middle School, while the Starr King community has more mixed feelings about the plan, which sends their children to Horace Mann Middle School.   Some portion of the Mandarin immersion parent community at Jose Ortega might join Starr King MI parents in asking to combine the programs at a single school, but probably only if that proposal targets Aptos.

    The Starr King parents are therefore considering the following courses of action…

    1. Embrace the selection of Horace Mann and work with the other feeder schools (Buena Vista, Chavez, and Webster)
    2. Accept the selection of Horace Mann and petition the district for possible changes to the plan
    3. Develop a consensus among the entire Starr King community (both MI, Gen-Ed, and Spanish biliteracy), that Aptos is a better choice, then petition the district to make this their middle school

    They have assigned action items to different parents to do the following…

    • Visit Horace Mann next week
    • Reach out to parent groups at Buena Vista, Chavez, and Webster
    • Visit or perform research on Aptos
    • Survey their parent community to understand their reactions to these different possible options

    Given these facts, the middle school issue has become a question primarily for Starr King.  The MIPC has no plans to meet again on this topic and the MIPC middle school committee is essentially inactive.  However the MIPC will continue to meet on other topics such as Mandarin language materials, curriculum, etc.

    Conversation with Orla O’Keefe

    Starr King Parent and MIPC president Beth Weise met with Special Assistant to the Superintendent on Student Assignment, Orla O’Keefe.  Ms. O’Keefe is the person with overall responsibility for the new plan.  Here is what Beth learned…

    Parent communities wishing to suggest a change to their own middle school assignment should understand the high-level goals that are driving the new plan.  One of the most important goals is to keep school communities together as the children move from elementary school to middle school.  This means that the district is unlikely to create a system that assigns students to a middle school based on participation in a program such as Mandarin immersion.  Ms O’Keefe said, “By splitting schools that have immersion and GE program, you diminish the opportunity to have a integrated learning opportunity”.

    Another goal is to make elementary schools feed into middle schools that are nearby.  While there are exceptions to this, the district generally avoids assigning children to a middle school that is far from their elementary school.

    Also, the district wants to locate Mandarin immersion programs in all four quadrants of the city.  This is an equity issue because the goal is to make Mandarin available and nearby for every community.

    Finally Ms. O’Keefe did acknowledge that it is a challenge to achieve all the goals listed above and create a viable Mandarin immersion program at a school like Horace Mann.  The question of attrition and lack of participation is one that does concern her.

    Starr King Parent Feedback

    Every parent in attendance had the chance to share their feelings.  Here are some of the common themes…

    Positives of Horace Mann and the SFUSD plan

    • This is more of a neighborhood model
    • Principal Mark Sanchez is a strong school leader
    • The school will have a large “language immersion” community because Buena Vista and Webster have Spanish immersion programs
      • It will be more like a true “immersion school”
    • Mann will have a much larger budget-per-student than any other school in the district
    • Horace Mann is well served by public transit (BART, multiple Muni lines, etc)
    • Excited about the mix of schools feeding into Mann (Buena Vista, Webster, Chavez)

    Negatives of Horace Mann and the SFUSD plan

    • There is a significant risk of attrition from the program because families will perceive Horace Mann as a less desirable middle school
    • We won’t have strength in numbers, and combining our children at one school would have made a stronger Mandarin immersion experience for our middle school children
    • The school will not be located where the Chinese population primarily lives

    Jose Ortega Survey

    During the discussion, I presented the data from a survey I ran of Jose Ortega parents.  Here is a very brief summary…

    • 43 parents participated, including 32 from the Mandarin program and 11 from the general education program
    • A large majority of parents are satisfied with Aptos as our middle school
      • Those that aren’t satisfied nearly all added comments that said they wanted a “better” school and mentioned schools like Hoover, Giannini, Presidio, or private school
    • Half the parents clearly said that they want to “keep our Jose Ortega community together” as we move to middle school, and half said that they wanted to choose the best program for their child
    • When asked what other middle schools they considered acceptable, the parents listed Aptos, Hoover, Giannini, James Lick, and Presidio.  A smaller number also listed Roosevelt and James Denman.  The remaining middle schools in the district, including Horace Mann, were listed as “unacceptable” by a majority of respondents.

  • Hiring bilingual babysitters to get bilingual kids

    Nothing on Mandarin here, but I know many parents have asked about hiring Mandarin-speaking nannies and babysitters so that their kids are bilingual. It certainly works – the Russian aristocracy always hired French-speaking nannies so that their children grew up speaking French perfectly.

    ==

    The New York Times

    By JENNY ANDERSON
    Published: August 18, 2010

    When Maureen Mazumder enrolled her daughter, Sabrina, in a Spanish singalong class a year ago, she hoped it would be the first step in helping her learn a second language. But the class did not seem to do the trick, so Ms. Mazumder decided to hire a baby sitter, one who would not only care for her daughter but also speak to her exclusively in Spanish.

    Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

    Elas Tarazona was hired to speak in Spanish with Nir Liberboim’s son WIlliam.

    Yana Paskova for The New York Times

    Some of Calliope’s Spanish books.

    “It was a must that she speak Spanish,” said Ms. Mazumder, who said neither she nor her husband was fluent in the language. “We feel so strongly that our daughter hear another language.”

    Ms. Mazumder, whose daughter is nearly 3, has company. Although a majority of parents seeking caretakers for their children still seek ones who will speak to their children in English, popular parenting blogs and Web sites indicate that a noticeable number of New York City parents are looking for baby sitters and nannies to help their children learn a second language, one they may not speak themselves.

    Read more here.

  • SF Middle School Language Pathways

    Yesterday we reported that we had no information about how the Mandarin immersion program would be handled within the new middle school plan.  Upon closer inspection, the school district’s presentation on the subject does give some information about this.  The answer was on the 40th slide of their giant powerpoint deck (you need to scroll down to the bottom of page 20 to see it).  Here it is…


    So it does appear that the school district plans to create two new Mandarin immersion middle school programs: one at Aptos middle school, and one at Horace Mann middle school.  It also intends to establish six Cantonese programs in addition to the three already in existence.  It  seems that while San Francisco will expand it’s Mandarin presence, it will also remain a stronghold of Cantonese language education and traditions.

    To get more information about the San Francisco school district’s new school assignment plans, click here.

  • SF Middle School Feeder Patterns

    Hot off the press!  Several San Francisco Mandarin immersion parents are attending the school board meeting tonight and one got a copy of the proposed middle school feeder patterns which she kindly scanned and shared with us.  Click here to see it for yourself.

    In summary, the document seems to contradict what we thought we learned from an earlier meeting with the board.  It simply states that Jose Ortega will feed into Aptos Middle School, and Starr King will feed into Horace Mann Middle School.  So far we have no specific information about how the Mandarin programs will be handled within this plan.  Stay tuned for more details!

  • Mandarin immersion charter proposed for west-of-Boston towns

    By Scott O’Connell/Daily News staff
    Posted Aug 18, 2010 @ 12:14 AM
    MARLBOROUGH —

    A proposed charter school serving MetroWest will focus on bilingual education in Mandarin Chinese, according to a prospectus submitted to the state for approval last month.

    The Hop Brook Regional Public Charter School was among 42 charter school proposals received by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education this summer. It was submitted for approval as a Commonwealth charter school.

    According to the prospectus, submitted July 30, the school would be located in Marlborough and enroll a maximum of 324 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. It would serve school districts in Berlin, Boylston, Clinton, Framingham, Hudson and Marlborough.

    The school would open next fall.

    The group that submitted the prospectus consists of Jeannette Landrie, Mark Rearden and Xin Xin of Shrewsbury; Anne-Marie Laine and Richard Williamson of Boxborough; Sanne Dinkel of Westwood, and Janis Peters of Mansfield.

    According to their resumes, Landrie, Dinkel and Peters are faculty members at Curry College. Laine teaches at Milton High School while Xin Xin teaches grades 5 through 8 in the Shrewsbury school system.

    read more here.

  • Georgia adds Mandarin classes at three elementary schools

    Note that the World Language Academy is an English/Spanish immersion charter school in Flowery Branch, Ga., northeast of Atlanta. It begins offering Mandarin lessons in 2nd grade. The Hall County school district there is now adding similar Chinese classes in three other elementary schools. While it’s not full immersion, it’s the only Mandarin classes available in elementary school in Georgia that we can find. If you know of a Mandarin immersion school in that state, please email us.

    ====

    By Carolyn Crist ccrist@gainesvilletimes.com

    POSTED: August 2, 2010 12:15 a.m.

    Hall County School officials saw the value of teaching Chinese to pre-kindergarten students, and now four elementary schools get to take on the challenge.

    After the World Language Academy opened options for young students to learn Mandarin Chinese, the Confucius Institute at Kennesaw State University offered four Chinese teachers to start programs.

    The institute will provide volunteer teachers for Riverbend Elementary, Mount Vernon Elementary, Wauka Mountain Elementary and the World Language Academy, and Hall County will pay $16,000 in living expenses for each teacher. The Confucius Institute will fund all other expenses.

    “We decided that implementation as early as possible is necessary in public schools,” said Carrie Woodcock, World Language Academy’s dual language director. “At World Language, students are taught in Spanish and English. We don’t teach them Spanish, we teach them in Spanish. For the Mandarin Chinese class, there was an immersion component where the teacher only spoke Chinese.

    The students were very proficient by the end of the year.”

    The other three elementary schools are the feeder campuses for North Hall Middle School, which boasts a growing Chinese foreign language program.

    “It gives the students a jumpstart on trying to decide what foreign language they might want to study,” North Hall Middle School Principal Brad Brown said. “If they are able to get into the classes earlier and learn the basics of the sounds and symbols, the students can take more in-depth courses as they come to us. We even have a class that will allow them to earn high school credit, and I want to eventually expand the foreign language program down to offer more to the sixth and seventh grades.”

    Read more here.

    And here’s an article from 2008, when Hall County launched its Spanish/English immersion charter school:

    Hall’s new Chestnut Mountain School and World Language Academy open

    By Jerry Gunn Staff
    Posted: Thursday, August 7th 2008 at 10:27am

    <!–

    –>

    click to enlarge

    Dual immersion begins at World Language Academy

    Chestnut Mountain – Hall County’s first charter school and World Language Academy opened for learning Thursday on Winder Highway at the site of the former Chestnut Mountain Elementary School.

    Complete dual language immersion began with Hispanic kindergarten and first grade students beginning to hear and learn English and English speaking students beginning to learn Spanish.

    Second through fifth grade students began their foreign language component including Spanish and Mandarin Chinese.

    Stephanie Chambers said it’s an advantage for her daughter, Jadyn.

    “I think it’s going to give them a leg up when they get older and they know at least two different languages,” she said. “ After they learn that second language it’s easier to learn a third language.”

    System spokesman Gordon Higgins said the Academy is an elementary school plus.

    “This is a first for us, a charter school and a school of choice and what a school it is with dual immersion, a world language academy,” Higgins said. “It’s where students will have the opportunity to be immersed in foreign language development beginning in kindergarten all the way through fifth grade.

    “We’re looking for an initial enrollment of 400 students.”

    Read more here.