Here are some really wonderful links on Language Immersion Education from the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition:
Mandarin Immersion Parents Council
Information for parents of kids in Mandarin immersion education
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Lots of families are signing their kids up for a new, Mandarin immersion charter school opening in Princeton, N.J., many from non-Mandarin speaking homes. However local residents oppose the school because it’s a charter.
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[From Town Topics, Princeton’s Weekly newspaper}
New Charter School Will Be Challenged At Plainsboro Meeting
Ellen Gilbert
The remaining hurdle for the recently-approved Princeton International Academy Charter School (PIACS) will be addressed on Wednesday evening, July 7, when the Plainsboro Zoning board will be asked to okay the school’s request for a use variance so that it can occupy the St. Joseph Seminary premises at 75 Mapleton Road.
It is anticipated, however, that opponents of PIACS will use the meeting as an opportunity to express opposition to the school, which plans to offer Mandarin language immersion and an IB (International Baccalaureate) curriculum beginning with grades Kindergarten through two, and expanding a grade each year after.
“I feel sorry for the Plainsboro Zoning Board,” said Princeton Board of Education President Rebecca Cox. “There’s no way that Plainsboro residents have any say about whether or not a charter school can open in their town.” The fact that PIACS is a nonprofit, she added, means that Plainsboro will not be able to collect taxes from them.
While Plainsboro residents haven’t had a say about the presence of PIACS in their community, Ms. Cox indicated that she and others will have plenty to say at the Wednesday meeting about why the new charter school should not be allowed to open, particularly at a time when “money is tight and public school programs are being cut.”
“People don’t understand the math,” said Ms. Cox. “While it appears that they will be taking just three or four children from each elementary school, it adds up to between $60,000 and $70,000 dollars, which is the salary of a classroom teacher.”
A lease agreement with the owners of St. Joseph’s has been finalized, according to PIACS spokesman Parker Block, and all of the documentation necessary for receiving the charter has been submitted to the Department of Education with this one exception. “The property in question was created to house a school and has been used for that purpose by the seminarians for decades until 1995, Mr. Block said. “So in essence we are requesting to use the property for the purpose it was intended.” Ms. Cox countered by noting that PIACS only has a one year lease at St. Joseph’s, which has, she believes, another commitment for the following year. She also expressed concern about the presence of religious symbols at the building.
Parents of children enrolling in PIACS do not, apparently, share these concerns. As of the June 30th deadline, the school had 159 students registered from within the South Brunswick/Princeton/West Windsor region. “The students come from over 30 different schools in the region, so the impact on any one school was indeed mitigated,” noted Mr. Parker. There is currently a waiting list of over 60 out-of-region students interested in attending the school.
“PIACS has filled its kindergarten and the second-grade classes and has started releasing the unfilled first-grade seats to the out-of-region waiting list,” reported Mr. Block. “We will continue accepting applicants for all three waiting lists. In-region applicants will receive priority.”
“Contrary to the predictions of those who opposed the school, the families of the students who have registered are quite diverse,” he noted. “Over 50 percent of the students come from families where no Mandarin is spoken. The community is multi-national, with parents coming from Kenya, Korea, Germany, Mexico, Nigeria, England, Russia, Japan, and France.”
“Total immersion is the way to go,” observed art historian Elizabeth Pilliod, a Princeton resident and parent of an incoming PIACS first grader. “We were in Holland for five months for my husband’s work, and enrolled our son in a school where only Dutch was spoken. Within a month he understood everything. He loved it.”
Read more here.
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In response to questions parents had been asking about whether immersion students find that their English is neglected, I asked parents what their experiences had been on the San Francisco Advocates For Multilingual Excellence (which is all immersion programs in the San Francisco Unified School District.)
An incoming Mandarin immersion parent sent the question to a younger relative, Wei-ying Wang, who went through the Cantonese immersion program at West Portal Elementary school in San Francisco.
What came back was a beautiful, insightful essay about Chinese immersion. While her experience is different from Mandarin immersion in that she had first Cantonese and then Mandarin (though I expect it will be of great interest to families at the Chinese Immersion School at DeAvila,) it offers interesting insight into what our kids might experience. And if her off-the-cuff email to a family member is any indication, English fluency is clearly not a problem for kids in immersion.
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By Wei-ying Wang
I don’t feel that my English was neglected in any way whatsoever while going through the immersion programs at West Portal Elementary School and Hoover Middle school. My conversational Chinese was pretty good before starting kindergarten (probably due to going to preschool at the YWCA in Chinatown), probably to the point that my English was not as fluent. I’m not sure how much the programs have changed since I attended, but during my time at West Portal, while I didn’t feel any lack in English.
Looking back years later, I noticed that it was somewhat more difficult to make friends outside of the program, since classes were different and didn’t intermingle much. The only other problem I can think of in elementary school was that the after school daycare program at West Portal didn’t have a staff member who could assist with questions about homework in Chinese. Children with parents who can read/write/speak Chinese definitely had an edge when it came to homework assignments. The program was great because it wasn’t just learning language, but also aspects of Chinese culture.
There was a slight disconnect between transitioning from West Portal to Hoover Middle School. Where math was taught in Chinese and social studies in English at West Portal, the Hoover program reversed this. Hoover’s program was not as immersive as West Portal’s. There was definitely a significant decrease in the time spent speaking Chinese in the classroom (however, this solved West Portal’s problem of socializing with people outside of the program). I thought Hoover’s program was equally valuable, although I will say learning about US history in Chinese was quite difficult. I’m not sure if it was my imagination or not, since it was so long ago, but it felt like I was in class longer than other students (since we had an early morning class). The classes were good though, and I remember we even had weekly assignments that required us to read and summarize articles in Chinese newspapers.
Lowell High School’s Chinese program is completely different, primarily because it was Mandarin instead of Cantonese, and because it was only a language class (versus a couple of subjects that were taught in Chinese). So there definitely no problem with neglected English in this case since Chinese was only 40 minutes a day. This was also where I had my first introduction to simplified Chinese characters. The difficulty here wasn’t picking up Mandarin, or even learning the simplified writing, but that my Chinese reading comprehension was much more advanced than that of my classmates. This made things awkward, since I could clearly understand the things I was reading, but couldn’t read them aloud very accurately.
This led to the reading material being somewhat elementary for me. I would say that the majority of the students in the Chinese classes at Lowell knew conversational Chinese, but had had no previous experience with reading and writing in Chinese. The style of teaching and curriculum of the classes were also very different from the immersion programs in that these classes fulfilled a language requirement, and were therefore very focused on teaching a very straightforward and not necessarily interesting material (which made the pace of the class seem a little slow despite how frequently we were meeting). The funny thing was that they actually had a section of the class devoted to food, so students were taught things like how to say “honey walnut shrimp.” Which didn’t seem too useful for ordering in many SF restaurants where Cantonese is the standard.
I would note that high schools and most colleges and universities only offer Mandarin classes. However, I think students who went through the West Portal, Hoover and Alice Fong Yu (a K-8 Cantonese immersion public school) immersion programs are at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to this, if they opt to continue taking Mandarin past middle school. The problem which I faced (not so much in high school but once I hit college) is that I had extremely advanced reading comprehension and extremely poor verbal fluency in Mandarin.
Particularly in college, where the reverse was usually true for the students taking Chinese (they could speak, but couldn’t read or write). This put me in an extremely awkward position when I started at Wellesley College’s Chinese department. In the first week of classes, I tried out 3 different levels of courses because the professors didn’t know what to do with me. The first class was introductory 100-level class, and completely boring since it was so easy. The second class was a slightly more advanced beginner’s class, where once again the course materials were too easy, but I couldn’t understand the instructor’s Mandarin (the department head thought it might have to do with my ability to understand the instructor’s accent). Finally, they settled me in an advanced conversational Mandarin class (which was a 300-level class). Again, I would say the course materials and assignments weren’t particularly difficult, but I had great difficulty with the speaking portion of the class.
I think that Chinese immersion programs are extremely valuable from an educational standpoint. For children of native speakers, the programs provide a connection to their heritage and culture, which would otherwise be greatly reduced going through the traditional track. If the children already speak the language, the programs offer a space to improve and maintain their fluency (which they would definitely lose spending the entire school day speaking in English). I think the programs are designed with the understanding that they shouldn’t impact English comprehension detrimentally.
I don’t think I missed anything from learning multiplication and division or the Articles of the Confederation in Chinese instead of English. If anything, I probably learned more, since I could talk about the things I learned at school in both Chinese and English. The immersion program makes speaking Chinese in class the norm, it doesn’t seem strange or foreign when everyone around you is experiencing the same thing.
I would also add that going through an immersion program didn’t make it seem like I was doing a lot more work than regular students, even though, to some degree, I was. This is probably the advantage of an immersion program over after school Chinese classes (which I’ve heard from many people aren’t too useful since you end up resenting having to go to another class after everyone else gets off from school).
All in all, even though I don’t think my Chinese is as good as it was several years ago due to lack of usage, I still value the experience and the education I received from these programs and support the continuation and expansion of bilingual immersion programs.
As for how useful it is in everyday life, I didn’t keep in touch with many people from the immersion programs, so I’m not entirely sure if they used the Chinese they learned later on in life. The only person I’ve seen recently gave a eulogy in Chinese for her late grandfather, and she noted that going through the immersion program allowed her to be the only one in the family able to communicate with her grandfather in his native language.
As for myself, I haven’t used my Chinese much beyond listening to pop music 🙂 When I was living in Boston though, I had many elderly Chinese people asking me for directions on the trains, so I’m sure they appreciated my Cantonese. If I had continued on the career path I had originally intended in college (art historian in contemporary Chinese art), I think I would have used the Mandarin a lot. I did notice that of the students taking Mandarin in College, quite a few of them did so with the intention of using it in their future finance careers.
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Some Uniform thoughts For Starr King & Jose Ortega Elementary Schools
(These tips apply to pretty much any school with uniforms in San Francisco, sometimes the bottoms are navy blue, sometimes black, sometimes khaki.)
Uniform requirements:
Starr King’s uniform is navy blue bottoms and a white, collared shirt on top.
Jose Ortega’s uniform is the same, though light-blue and navy shirts are also allowed.
Any colored shoes, socks and tights are fine.
Land’s End Preferred School Program:
If you buy your uniforms at Land’s End, each school is part of their Preferred School program and the school gets some money back from purchases. Each schools’ number is below.
Starr King: 900138058.
Jose Ortega : 900139296.
Suggestions from current parents:
Where do you get uniforms?
– I ordered a bunch of stuff from http://www.thechildrenswearoutlet.com/shop/ last year. The shirts were fine. I wish I had bought more of them. The bottoms were really variable in sizes-we bought a skirt that though it said it was a 6, seemed more like an 8.
– Thrift Town (2101 Mission Street) for pants, shorts, jackets, and sweaters. They tend not to have white polo shirts, which I bought new.
– I also bought some jumpers/skirts at thrift stores (which were fine). Most thrift stores have a small stock of random uniform stuff all year, but I found that at the end of the summer Thrift Town had a big rack of things. I had a harder time finding good white shirts or pants there and after a year I see why.
– Ross/Marshalls also had a good selection of various brands in the fall. This might be a good inexpensive choice for non-standard sizes.
– Now Gap/Crazy8s/all department stores have uniforms in the late summer/fall. Sears ran a promotion that said that if they didn’t have the size you wanted it would be free last fall
– Burlington Coat Factory, They have white polo style shirts available for boys and girls throughout the school year. Girls size 7 pants have been elusive at the Howard/5th Street store
What brands are good/bad?
– I would say Lands End, Polo. I got 6 or so shirts from Amazon; French Toast was the brand (cheap! like $7 each). They are mediocre quality, tho’ my son likes them.
– Kindergarteners need elastic waistbands so that it’s easier for them to handle the bathroom on their own! I liked the cargo pants from Children’s Place for this reason, but they seem to wear out just before the year ends.
– We like the polyester jumpers and skirts from French Toast (frenchtoast.com). They don’t get all gnarly, curly and faded in the wash like cotton ones. Cute styles, too.
– Though the French Toast white polo shirts don’t hold up as well as Lands End.
– Gymboree (my fave); French toast on line (runs small); Target; Kohls(my 2nd fave)
– Lands End endures! Can last the whole year
Is there a good place to buy for different sized-kids (some uniform pants are too big if you’ve got a really thin kid, for example)
– Some of the Target skorts have adjustable waist bands which is helpful for my slim girl.
– Some Lands End clothes have adjustable waist bands
What will the kid really wear (i.e. skirts? jumpers? Sweaters? hoodies?)
– I suggest layering a white or blue knit shirt under a polo or dress on cooler days. I’ve bought a lot of cute navy-blue sweaters from Lands’ End over the years, and the most recent one was lost on the second day of school. It disappeared when my daughter left it on the bench during recess. Knit shirts are cheaper to replace.
– Littler girls seem to like skirts and jumpers, later on they only seem to want to wear pants. For under skirts and jumper, bicycle shorts are a great way to avoid the dreaded “I see London, I see France…” problem.
– All the kinder girls seem to wear short skirts or short dresses with blue (or other color) leggings underneath (or colorful tights). My son refused to wear any long-sleeved white shirt. (button-down, turtleneck, polo-style — nada.) He wears hoodie sweaters and jackets.
– My son wore shorts for a few days, but EVERY time he wore shorts, he came home with skinned (bloody) knees. I don’t know whether it was just unlucky, or my son is particularly clumsy, but be aware that very active kids + shorts = scabby knees. My son is OK wearing pants, so we just went w/that.
– Skorts and jumpers. Mine won’t wear pants. In K she loved the blue dresses w/ short sleeves (no white shirt needed) from Target. I bought a couple for first grade and she didn’t wear them all year. Hoodies are a must but needn’t be uniform colors. I got a white hoodie and a navy sweater before learning that hoodies are free choice and my girl rarely wore those. She chose her pink or pink- hearts hoodies instead.
– A few months into the school year my daughter decided that she really didn’t want to wear skirts or dresses anymore-so I would advise if you have a girl being cautious about your selection.
– What my daughter wants to wear are navy yoga pants from target and long sleeve, non-ruffle collared shirts. Every day. Regardless if you have a kinder kid I would advise making sure that kids are able to get the pants on and off without assistance. I didn’t think of this and we had an accident before she was able to get her pants off.
What do you wish you’d bought more of?
– White short-sleeved shirts
– Pink tights and leggings
– More shirts set aside and reserved for after Christmas would have been a good idea. The shirts she’s wearing now are funky-dunky, but I am not buying more until the fall.
– White collared tops, navy blue bottoms.
I try and buy thicker pants for my active son, as we have problems getting holes in the knees. I look year round for stuff on sale and grab it when it is the next size up! I also recommend buying the long sleeved polos when they come out late July/ e…
– White collared tops, navy blue bottoms.
– I try and buy thicker pants for my active son, as we have problems getting holes in the knees. I look year round for stuff on sale and grab it when it is the next size up! I also recommend buying the long sleeved polos when they come out late July/ early August, as they are hard to find when it gets cold (unless you buy online).
– For our daughter it is all about variety as you never know if she’ll want to wear skirts/ dresses 5 days a week.
– A good, sturdy cotton zip up sweater (Lands End makes a nice one) is great for girls. Navy blue held up better than white. My girls worn theirs to school almost every day.
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What do you wish you’d skipped?
– Long-sleeved white shirts, and maybe some of the shorts (due to the skinned-knee thing)
– This year, dresses
– Fancy long-sleeved shirts that buttoned for girls, which they consistently refused to wear, however cute they looked to me.
– We tried shorts the first year but they never got worn.
– Uniform pants can be heavy and stiff sometimes. We really liked the yoga flare pants that Lands End sells. There are also similar knit pants at Target and sometimes you find them at Costco, though it’s hit or miss there.
When did you buy?
– June – August (you gotta give it more time at a thrift store)
– In August. We went together and it was a fun getting- ready- for- school shopping trip.
– Tip if you like the Lands End yoga flare pants, which are very popular – they tend to run out by Nov, so buy enough because otherwise you’ll get the dreaded “out of stock until July” message
– Shortly before year started, the kids grow like weeds between ages 5-7.
How long do they last?
– The new shirts got stained right away. The thrift store pants are still fine. Nothing is torn or too small, so define “last”…. 🙂 However, when he entered K, he had some 4T garments — those he outgrew by Feb/Mar (he turned 5 in Aug, so I figured I got an extra 6 months out of them).
– How long do they last? My da is still wearing some of the k skorts at the end of 1st grade. they’re not as crisp but are fine.
– Boys will destroy white shirts. You just have to live with it. Stain sticks are your friend.
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How many of everything do you need?
– We got too much. I got seven or eight skorts/jumpers and some pants that she never ever wore, and probably even more shirts, in K. She outgrew some of the shirts midyear. I bought the larger size at the beginning of the year (on the advice of a 2nd grade parent) and those she still wears a year later.
– In K my daughter was into tights. In 1st she’s more into leggings. If your kid wears pants you can skip this step.
How many of everything do you need?
– pants: 6-8 prs
shorts: 1-2
short-sleeved shirts: 6-8
long-sleeved shirts: 1-2
sweaters/hoodies: 3-4
jackets: 3-4
– 5 outfits so that I don’t have to do laundry mid week.
– At least five white, short-sleeved polo shirts as at a certain point they seem to stop wearing anything else, and they usually get them so dirty in one day that you can’t get by with having them wear them twice.
Do kids outgrow stuff in Kindergarten? Will I need to shop twice?
– Only the 4t stuff.
– A 2nd grade parent advised me to get larger sizes in august/sept bec they need them in jan/feb and uniforms are much much harder to find then.
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What about shoes?
– I see a lot of Kinders wearing crocs or sandals (boys and girls). My guy is not that guy. Early in the year he wore construction boots, slip on hiking-style (low) shoes, and now he wears basketball shoes (hi-tops). He is athletic and wants to RUN and play on the yard. Some of the girls, though, especially, wear cute girly shoes. Depends on temprament, I think.
– before Kindergarten I got one pair of cute Mary Jane shoes to go with the uniforms (not required, any kind of shoes, hoodies, socks is fine) and my daughter wore them once. Her feet grew a lot over the last couple of years so we’ve gone through quite few tennis shoes.
– Something they can run around in well on the playground.
Other tips:
– When it’s cold, the kids can wear any colored long sleeved shirt as long as a white shirt is worn on top. (Laundry is easier when the long sleeves are dark colored!)
– Ditto that – they’re much more likely to lose a sweater than a long-sleeved shirt that they won’t take off.
– Cotton sweaters they can wear inside in the winter months when it’s cold.
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In about two years, the first wave of Mandarin immersion students in San Francisco’s public schools will be entering middle school and parents from Starr King Elementary and Jose Ortega Elementary are working to have an impact on how this unfolds. Recently our middle school committee met to discuss what’s happening and decide on next steps. Here are notes from that meeting…
Action Items
- Katie: Coordinate upcoming meeting with the school district (see “Agenda” below)
- Renee: Arrange the location for the first 2010/2011 San Francisco MIPC meeting
- Beth: Schedule a meeting with our friends at the Chinese Immersion School
Middle School Committee Mission
We agree that the MIPC middle school committee should represent the interests of all the parents, even when these interests differ from the personal wishes of the committee members. This implies reaching a better understanding of the larger parent community and it probably requires gathering additional information through a follow-on survey.
Several committee members felt that we should also communicate the district’s goals and policies to our families in order to help parents understand which options are likely and which are unlikely. This may help to inform parents as they respond to the follow-on survey and encourage them to concentrate their energies on realistic outcomes.
Chinese Immersion School at De Avila
We plan to meet with parents from the Chinese Immersion School at DeAvila and see if it makes sense to collaborate on the question of middle school. The big advantage is that it would double the number of families talking to the district about a combined Chinese middle school program. Our questions right now include…
- How would a combined program handle children entering middle school with different levels of Mandarin experience?
- How would we reconcile the fact that CIS students learn traditional characters, while Starr King and Jose Ortega students learn simplified characters?
- What does the district think about combining the programs starting in sixth grade?
- Do the two parent communities have enough overlap in their goals to make a collaboration worthwhile?
Beth will be setting up a meeting in the near future so that we can talk to representatives from CIS and get a better sense of what they want and where they are in the process. We will also be discussing this in our upcoming meeting with the district (see agenda below).
Follow-on Survey
The committee discussed the results from our first survey as well as the anecdotal feedback members have received since then. Based on this, we are planning to conduct a shorter, follow-on survey to gather additional information and help clarify open questions. Here are the highlights of that discussion…
- Were parents thinking of specific programs at the schools they selected, or were they concentrating on location?
- What kinds of programs are parents hoping for? For example…
- A dedicated “World Languages” middle school that has multiple immersion programs?
- A dedicated “Chinese immersion” middle school that has students from various Chinese programs?
- Adding Mandarin immersion courses at an existing middle school with spare capacity? Which schools would be acceptable for this option?
- Other?
- How will parents react to concrete proposals for specific programs at specific schools?
- How can we best communicate the district’s point-of-view to the parents?
- If the district is giving especially negative signals for a given option, how do we communicate this to the parents?
- How would the school district’s guidance affect or limit the questions we pose in our second survey?
- Given their current state of planning, what other questions might the district like us to pose to the parents?
- Would the Chinese Immersion School families wish to take part in our follow-on survey?
Recent Discussions with the District
We have already gotten some limited feedback from the district, especially on the question of a theoretical dedicated Chinese immersion school. Their question is: How would such a school square with the goal of reducing racial isolation and the concentration of underserved students? They also suggested that we review the school district’s “2010 student assignment policy” when considering which options to propose. Their goal is to create a program that is consistent with this policy.
Upcoming School District Meeting
We are planning to meet with officials of the school district in order to understand their thinking and hopefully start a dialog. Our goal is to keep our parents informed and also find ways to give the district information about the feelings and wishes of our parents. Here is a draft agenda for that meeting…
Communicating with Parents
- What information do you need from the Mandarin immersion parents that would be helpful to the District in making middle school decisions?
- Besides our follow-on survey, what other ways do you suggest that we gather information?
- What questions would you like to see in our follow-on survey?
Process and Transition
- What is the process involved with establishing a new program like this one in a middle school?
- Has the district already identified potential sites (for locating the Mandarin middle school program)?
- What will the program look like the first year (2012/2013)? How about the second year ? How about the third?
- How do you think the ramp-up will work during these first three years?
- Do you think it likely that the program will move during this transition period?
- If the Mandarin program becomes part of an existing middle school, how can we work with the district to insure that the needs of MI students are met as one strand within that larger school? We have heard that Spanish immersion strands placed in middle schools have sometimes felt short-changed because the GE programs were larger and their needs greater.
Mandarin pathways
- What can the Mandarin Immersion Parents Council do to assist the district in creating our middle school pathway?
- What do you think the best possible Mandarin middle school program for our students would look like?
- How can we help make that happen?
- In general, how will we get critical mass for Chinese immersion at a middle school?
- How will the feeder pathway work for Mandarin? Will Starr King and Jose Ortega students move together?
- Does the district have a plan for how it treats students in immersion programs and how they get assigned to a school/program? Will the student be automatically assigned to the feeder middle school (non-immerison) OR will the student be automatically enrolled in the immersion program (wherever that may be).
- Could this program include two periods or possibly more in Mandarin?
Further Discussions
- Would it be appropriate for us to start talking with principals at specific schools? If so, which ones would you recommend?
- Who else do you think we should be meeting with at this time?
Chinese Immersion School at De Avila
- What is the current district thinking about how CIS might fit into this middle school?
- Do you think it’s possible to combine the Starr King/Ortega students and the CIS students into a single school location?
- Will the CIS students be coming in at the same level of Mandarin proficiency as the Mandarin immersion students? If not, how would we address this?
- If we combined CIS, Starr King, and Ortega students, would we likely do this at a “Chinese school”, or would the combined group be inserted into an existing underutilized middle school?
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A 4th grade Mandarin immersion student reading in Chinese while listening to the book on an iPad. Marie Ciepela, a mom with two sons in Mandarin immersion at Starr King Elementary school in San Francisco, sends these notes from a talk last week. Probably the most important take-home message for families with kids in Mandarin immersion is that our English book-filled homes are deserts when it comes to Chinese language materials. Without a lot of work on our part, our children experience the same ‘poverty gap’ that children in a socioeconomically deprived homes would in English. It’s a problem we need to overcome and one that the MIPC is working on. Thanks for Marie for writing up her notes from this six-hour lecture.
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I attended a STARTALK lecture June 24 at San Francisco State University given by Stephen Krashen, an expert on second-language acquisition. It was part of a federally-funded week-long STARTALK Teacher Chinese Institute program. I wanted to provide some of the information and talk about a few things that made an impression on me. As a Mandarin immersion parent and an aspiring teacher entering the credential program for a Bilingual Crosscultural Language and Academic Development (BCLAD) in Spanish, I will most likely be obsessed with this topic. I will try to keep it brief and let you read from the resources provided below. I also want to clarify that this is a not a report of what Krashen said as much as my interpretation of significant issues and how they intersect with my own observations in the MI program.
Reading for pleasure is key to second language acquisition – and we need access to Mandarin books
Access to Mandarin language books that our children want to and can read for pleasure is a big problem that we need to resolve if we want this thing to work. This is particularly true for non-language-heritage families. Krashen talked briefly about the overwhelming impact of poverty on student performance in the U.S. Without going into detail, lack of reading and lack of access to books continues to plague poor communities and is a hugely significant factor in continued poor test performance, English acqusition, and overall literacy. Startling data was presented about the average number of children’s books per household in Watts (half a book) and Beverly Hills (200), and correspondingly, in neighborhood and school libraries. Yet, reading is THE essential component in first and any subsequent language acquisition.
This concept is relevant to us and for answering the narrower question of “Is this Mandarin immersion thing going to work?”, because we have our own “poverty effect” to resolve. We lack access to Mandarin reading materials with gripping stories that will produce habitual pleasure readers in Mandarin. If we get language teaching through the classroom without this, I think our results will be limited (see below for the theory). We know reading for pleasure (Free Voluntary Reading or FVR) is essential in English. It should be no surprise that we need the exact same thing in Mandarin.
But I feel heartened. First, I think our kids get silent reading (SSR) time in Mandarin class in school and they definitely get stories read to them. We should verify this with the teachers.
Second, as I have proclaimed ad nauseam, I think that 5qchannel.com (a Mandarin reading-and-story site from Taiwan) is a great short-term solution for our kids, particularly those in the lower grades who can’t actually read yet and for parents who cannot read aloud to their children in Mandarin. In my experience the children began to truly read independently mid-way through 3rd grade. This of course, can come quicker in native speaking households, particularly where children have been read to consistently.
Third, some parents have begun to unearth at-home reading options that our kids really can read. The trick here is to find books they have the competency to read with great stories that grab them (not content written for pre-schoolers and babies). We have seen an explosion of Mandarin resources on web sites and I am hoping that this is going to be followed by an explosion of the Mandarin book supply locally. Or we are going to have to go hunting. And by books I mean anything that can be read on paper, including comic books (aka manga) and magazines. I am recommending a committee be formed by Mandarin Immersion Parents Council for the development of a reading list of things we can actually get our hands on.
And finally, we should congratulate ourselves that this year both the Starr King and Jose Ortega PTA’s invested money in Mandarin reading materials for our classrooms and libraries at a time when the school district is unable to. (Quality of school library is also tied to test scores – for those test-wonkers out there.)
Language acquisition versus language learning
Here is where I try to point out parts of Krashen’s talk while trying not to write out his entire theory. You can find a summary here, or look at Krashen’s books listed on his web site. But here are some of the main points.
- We learn more through acquisition (“picking up the language”) rather than through conscious learning (“grammar,” i.e. sitting down and memorizing rules and characters).
- The acquisition system predominates in fluency while the conscious learning system provides “the editing” when language competency grows stronger. But the conscious learning system is still weaker overall in children.
- Conscious learning and error correction have limited effects for new learners. They need to learn through exposure, just as babies learn. Not through excessive studying and drilling. (However, daily character practice in homework at the level we are getting is perfectly appropriate. Sorry folks. This isn’t magic either!)
- Language is acquired best when students receive comprehensible, interesting input (this is called ‘Comprehensible Input’ in education-speak.)
- Among the teaching methods for providing Comprehensible Input are Total Physical Response (TPR); the Natural Approach, and; Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS). In layman’s terms I think that means what we see out teachers do – jump around a lot and use their bodies to teach characters that involve the kids physically and cognitively. Just recall the spying you have done in the classrooms, seeing our teachers pulling on their ears or crying on the floor to demonstrate the meaning of characters. Or Ms. Chau’s daily dramatization of the Berenstain Bears. Teaching through subject matter is also a significant strategy, and of course, what we get in immersion.
- Acquisition and language accuracy is input driven, not output driven, and input should be provided in great quantities. That’s why the more hours of Mandarin our children get a day, the better.
- The corollary here is that the ability to speak is the RESULT of language acquisition. Talking will come, but silent periods are perfectly normal. Remember that for close to a year toddlers can understand and act on much of what’s said to them but can’t actually speak more than a few words. Forcing output is less helpful. (So lay off the ‘performing monkey syndrome’ that all too many of us immersion parents fall prey to!)
- Significant Comprehensive Input comes from reading. When a child gets to a competent reading level, character memorization will come more from the act of reading than character practice. We see this in English where we know that young readers see well-written sentences and expansive vocabulary over and over so when a grammar/vocabulary lesson is given to them at a later age, it is accessible and sensible to them. As they keep saying about English, Reading is Fundamental.
- Other personality factors such as motivation, anxiety and self-esteem effect acquisition, blocking or opening up acquisition. Reading is a great way to help a kid with a high shyness for talking.
- THERFORE, the best way to learn to read, write and speak a language occurs in low-anxiety environments with lots of comprehensible inputs.
At this point, I need to point out that while this makes perfectly natural sense to me, Stephen Krashen is the source of some controversy for his work and his opposition to No Child Left Behind and the current move by the Obama Administration and Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan toward more skill-building protocols (“rules” and grammar”) and more testing.
We should all really know more about what may be coming down the pike in terms of national education policy. Krashen’s research leads him to believe that constant testing when it comes to kids learning languages actually gets in the way of their learning, because it’s too easy for that testing-to-know-what’s-going-on to turn into teaching-for-the-test. And his work shows that’s not a good way to learn.
Hot-off-the-press – Surveys results from our own kids and teachers!
It just so happened that Krashen released the results of a STARTALK survey that our kids and teachers may have participated in as part of an analysis of Chinese immersion in San Francisco Unified School District.
The survey asked both teachers and students how they judged various teaching techniques in terms of:
- effectiveness and;
- pleasurable experience.
Interestingly, there was virtually no difference in the opinions between the teachers and students. They ranked techniques for effectiveness and pleasure as follows:
- Listening to Chinese stories be read or told by teachers
- Watching Chinese cartoons/movies/videos
- Reading Chinese books of my own choice
- Reading required Chinese books
- Studying text books
- Memorizing textbook lessons
- Practicing writing characters
When researchers asked the teachers how much the kids read, they said the kids read very little. When he asked why, they said that they just do not have access to the kinds of books that are appropriate for their level and that interest them. Back to point number one above – finding books for our kids to read in Mandarin is crucial to their ability to succeed in Chinese.
What to Do: It seems that good language acquisition takes three things:
- Great teaching (Yeah! We have that!);
- Time allotted for silent reading in school and at home;
- Access to good reading materials.
Clearly the first is taken care of the by teachers using all these strategies, including “grammar” instruction and character teaching. Time allotted for reading at home is every family’s personal decision. But access to materials is a collective issue that we can all work to resolve.
As I need to brush up on my Spanish, I am headed to the Spanish-language section of the bookstore, not to buy another verb conjugation book, but some nice trashy novel.
Resources, links and studies
- http://www.languageimpact.com/articles/rw/krashenbk.htm
- www.sdkrashen.com
- TPR and Asher: http://www.tpr-world.com
- TRPS and Blaine Ray: http://www.fluencyfast.com/
- Comprehensible Input and Blaine Ray: http://www.comprehensibleinput.com
The hand-out also listed numerous studies and data on the effectiveness of Comprehensible Input and Sustained Silent Reading, which I can provide if anyone is interested.
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Participants in the newly-created Chinese Immersion Program at Azevada Elementary School in Fremont, Calif were selected by lottery 0n Wednesday, June 23. Students will be placed based on their lottery number and the established priorities. Per Board agreement, Azevada school students will have first priority.
The District staff drew the names of 28 applicants in three buckets to establish priority for the Chinese Immersion Program:
* 4 Azevada English-only students
* 8 Mandarin speakers
* 16 English only speakersThe Mandarin immersion kindergarten class will begin this coming Fall 2010 with at least one kindergarten class. Enrollment letters will be sent to parents participating in the lottery on Monday, June 28.
The Board agreed at that (1) we had sufficient applicants to start at least one kindergarten class and (2) we would extend the deadline for applicants on a first come, first served basis. Applications are available from the District Office, department of Federal and State Projects, 4210 Technology Drive, Fremont, CA, 94538.
The creation of the Chinese Immersion Program is a tremendous accomplishment especially with the challenging timeline. Thank you to the Board members who supported the effort, the District staff who have worked so diligently to make the program a reality, Azevada principal and staff who welcomed the program, and to all of the parents and community members who fought for this program over the past few years. Our children will reap the benefits of this program for years to come.
There is still much that needs to be accomplished over the next couple of months. We encourage all interested parents and supporters to join the Chinese Immersion Parents’ Council to help in both fundraising and outreach efforts.
For more information, please go to the web site of The Chinese Immersion Parents’ Council of Fremont.
Mandarin Immersion Parents Council 