Information for parents of kids in Mandarin immersion education

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  • Mandarin programs open in two British Columbian schools

    Mandarin programs grow in B.C. schools

    Last Updated: Tuesday, September 7, 2010 | 11:41 AM PT

    B.C.’s first Mandarin language programs for kindergarten and Grade 1 students are being launched in Coquitlam and Burnaby, adding to the range of programs offered in the Vancouver area.

    Walton Elementary School in the Coquitlam School District launched its program Tuesday and will offer it to 44 kindergarten and 39 Grade 1 students. But unlike French immersion programs, the bilingual program will offer instruction split evenly between Mandarin and English.

    The Burnaby School District is also offering a Mandarin program for kindergarten and Grade 1 students at Forest Grove Elementary School for the first time this year. It will include 150 minutes of Mandarin language instruction per week.

    The Vancouver School Board already offers a Mandarin language program for Grade 4 and Grade 7 students at Jamieson Elementary School and is planning a K-1 Mandarin program for the fall of 2011. Many districts also offer Mandarin courses at the high school level.

    Raquel Barria said she was considering enrolling her son, Joshua, in the French immersion kindergarten program in Burnaby, but decided Mandarin would be a better language for him to learn.

    “Even the people who speak French, they speak English. But for people around here like our neighbours, a lot of them are from China. So we have good friends who are from China, and they don’t really speak English well, and they speak Mandarin,” she said.

    Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/09/07/bc-mandarin-school-programs.html#ixzz0ywadTohE

  • Canada, long a leader in immersion education, looks to Mandarin

    This is an interesting article as it talks about how one of the oldest and largest immersion systems in North America – French in Canada – works, and how they’re now starting to think about Mandarin.

    Benefits of learning a new language early

    By Manisha Krishnan, North Shore News

    Read more: http://www.nsnews.com/life/Benefits+learning+language+early/3484578/story.html#ixzz0yo798iEs

    Bilingualism is a unique part of Canada’s national identity and that’s reflected in the language programs offered at schools throughout the country.

    The most popular of these is French Immersion, available at various schools on the North Shore.

    Benefits to learning a second language are numerous, according to Robert Rothon, executive director of Canadian Parents for French, B.C. and Yukon branch, a non-profit organization that advocates for French programs for youth.

    “Learning another language . . . always profits the child. It enhances cognitive development. Children who speak more than one language generally do better academically than unilingual children,” says Rothon.

    “Speaking more than one language and learning more than one language really seems to help a child fire at all cylinders, intellectually speaking.”

    Early immersion starts in kindergarten with 100 per cent of classes being taught in French until Grade 3 in North Vancouver and Grade 4 in West Vancouver, after which English language arts is added to the curriculum. Late immersion starts in Grade 6 with all classes offered in French for that year and English re-introduced in Grade 7. The number of classes offered in French then tapers off in high school, making up 25 per cent of the schedule in the senior years.

    Once outside of the school system, having a background in French can open up more job opportunities for students, says Rothon.

    Read more: http://www.nsnews.com/life/Benefits+learning+language+early/3484578/story.html#ixzz0yo73e0hL

  • Useless New Oxford Mandarin-English dictionary – no pinyin

    So I shelled out $75 for this dictionary and it arrived at my local bookstore today. AND THERE’S NO PINYIN IN THE ENGLISH SIDE!

    It’s useless, or at least 50% useless! (the Mandarin-English side grudgingly gives pinyin for main words, but not for many compounds and examples)

    So your kid says “Mama, how do you say ‘lion’ in Mandarin?” as she does her homework. You tell her to  go to this dictionary and look up lion in the English-Mandarin side and it tells her lion is 狮子.

    Well, that was helpful. You child knows how to write it but not say it. So the two of you have to laboriously count the stroke order and look it up in the Mandarin-English side, only to have her say “Oh, it’s shirzi! I knew that, I just forgot.”

    I simply don’t get the thinking behind doing an entire dictionary with the presumption that the only people using it are people who are already fluent readers of Chinese. Do they not think that other people might be learning Chinese? It’s maddening.

    So don’t buy this dictionary unless you happen to have a fluent reader of Mandarin in your household. It’s just not worth the price given that it doesn’t provide pronunciation.

    And if there’s something I’m missing about why one would want a dictionary that didn’t provide pronunciation, please enlighten me. (Sorry, I’m pretty peeved right now – why is it so hard to find a good English-Chinese, Chinese-English dictionary for English speakers?)

    –Beth

    From the Wall Street Journal

    Five years, 60 editors and translators, 300,000 words, 370,000 translations: It all adds up to the largest single volume English-Chinese, Chinese-English dictionary ever put together, due to be published Sept. 9 by Oxford University Press.

    Oxford University Press

    For Julie Kleeman, one of the dictionary’s two chief editors, putting together the dictionary has been a long but ultimately satisfying slog. Having read every entry in the huge tome at least once, she’s confident it’s a departure from other such dictionaries on the market, both within China and elsewhere.

    “It presents both English and Chinese in a much more modern, colloquial, conversational way,” she says, in part a result of using native speakers of both languages in the compilation process, the first time this has happened on an English-Chinese dictionary of this size.

    Please click here to read more.

  • Fremont, Calif. Mandarin immersion program starts

    Fremont starts first Mandarin immersion kindergarten program

    Kindergarten class to get instruction mostly in Chinese

    Lawerence Tran, 5, whispers something to his dad Thang Tran as he gets dropped off on the first day…

    FREMONT — Children in teacher Orchid Wang’s kindergarten class didn’t say “bye-bye” to their parents, who crowded just outside the classroom door Wednesday morning, snapping photos of their little ones sitting at school desks for the first time.

    With a little prodding from the teacher, they said “zia jian” as they waved goodbye to their moms and dads before Wang closed the door.

    They were among thousands of students throughout the Fremont and New Haven school districts who started the school year Wednesday.

    Moments after Wang’s class began, out came Pikachu, Hello Kitty, a dragon, and several other props — all geared toward teaching the basics of Mandarin Chinese.

    If everything goes according to plan, these 28 students will be proficient in the world’s most spoken language by middle school.

    Not surprisingly, nearly all of the 28 students in Fremont’s first Mandarin-immersion kindergarten class have at least one parent of Chinese descent, although English is the only language spoken in most of their homes.

    Please click here to read more.

  • Update on Mandarin immersion in British Columbia

    British Columbia has one of the largest Chinese-speaking populations in Canada. But Mandarin immersion programs are thin on the ground there, with one up and running and two starting next year. They’re all oversubscribed.  This is from the national paper, The Globe and Mail

    ===

    Provision of Mandarin classes is up to local boards, B.C. Education Minister says

    Mandarin courses would be a good fit for British Columbia schools, but introducing such programs is up to local boards, provincial Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid said on Tuesday.

    “I certainly think that second languages are valuable and providing access to Mandarin immersion really makes sense when you consider our province and the close ties we have with Asia,” Ms. MacDiarmid said. “We’re certainly supportive of these languages being provided. But currently these decisions are made at a local level – this is something that boards have the authority to do.”

    Ms. MacDiarmid spoke to reporters on a conference call to discuss the coming school year.

    The Vancouver School Board is planning a Mandarin program for the fall of 2011, and two other districts, Coquitlam and Burnaby, are readying or have launched Mandarin programs.

    Coquitlam will introduce a Mandarin bilingual program this fall that will be offered through two full-day kindergarten classes and two Grade 1 classes that will enroll 83 students.

    Demand for the program – which was introduced after parents lobbied for the option – far outstripped available spaces, so the district assigned spaces through a lottery, said Coquitlam district spokeswoman Cheryl Quinton.

    School districts would have to weigh demand for new language or other programs against available budgets.

    Read more here.

  • New to immersion? Two online dictionaries to make your life easier

    Two excellent online dictionaries that save the day in many a Mandarin immersion home during homework hour.

  • Idaho school starts Mandarin immersion

    by Nishi Gupta

    KTVB.COM

    Posted on August 27, 2010 at 6:04 PM

    Updated yesterday at 6:28 PM

    MERIDIAN — A school in Meridian may be the first of its kind in the state.

    The Gateway School of Language and Culture will offer an intense Mandarin Chinese program to some of its students this year.

    It’s predicted the language will be dominant in the business world of the future, and teachers hope to equip Idaho kids with the edge they need to succeed.

    When you step into the Gateway School you suddenly feel like you’re in the Far East.  Its classrooms and halls are covered wall-to-wall in an Asian theme.

    And teachers are prepared to step it up a notch.

    “They’re going to call me Li Lao Shi, which means Mr. Lee,” Are they going to learn that on the first day? Yes, yes,” said teacher Peng Li.

    Peng Li is one of three teachers who will put students on the path to global enlightenment and education.

    Studies show kids who learn a foreign language early have a better of chance of being fluent, and at Gateway, about 40 kids in kindergarten and first grade will be exposed to it in classrooms like Li’s.

    They’ll be taught for half a day in English, the rest in Mandarin Chinese.

    Teachers will follow the general Meridian curriculum, but the immersion program will add an additional Asian flare — and for good reason.

    “People look at China to be the next strongest country to, shoulder to shoulder to America,”said Li.

    “What’s the world going to look like 15-20 years from now when these kids are entering college, leaving college, entering the workforce?  And it was really hard when you look at that crystal ball and try to look at what the world is going to look like to think that China isn’t going to be a major player and what an opportunity we can give to students right here in Meridian and Boise,” said Gateway Principal Craig Ayala-Marshall.

    Ayala-Marshall says the district plans to add Mandarin Chinese courses in junior high and high schools as the kindergartners and first graders age.

    The belief is the students who stick to the program will be ready to compete on an international stage.

    “After 12-13 years in our school system, they should come out fully bilingual,”  said Ayala-Marshall.

    And fully fluent in Chinese culture.

    Teacher Peng Li will make sure of that.

    “I have this mission to just share the language, share the culture and just bring as much as I can,” said Li.

    The Mandarin Chinese immersion program is only offered to kindergartners and first grade right now.

    All of the other students in the school will learn the language for about an hour a week, and that’s something the school has done for a couple years.

    If you want to sign your child up for this program, it is not too late.  Call the school soon though, as classes start on Monday.

    See the TV segment here.