The Oregonian, June 23, 2010

By Dave Porter

Some local school districts, boards and administrators are holding back development of foreign language immersion programs necessary for Oregon’s economic future.

There are two current examples: the West Linn-Wilsonville School Board recently canceled tits 1-year-old Spanish immersion program, while Portland Public Schools failed again this year to expand either its Mandarin or Japanese immersion programs in spite of parent demand sufficient for at least another classroom in each case.

This year PPS’s Japanese immersion program at Richmond had 118 qualified applicants for 71 kindergarten slots next year, leaving out 47-plus others who missed mandatory meetings. At 25 per class at Richmond, that’s almost two additional classrooms. At the Mandarin immersion at Woodstock, there were 94 qualified applicants for 60 slots next year, leaving out 34-plus of those missing mandatory meetings. At 30 per class at Woodstock, there were enough children for another classroom. Similar demand-to-supply situations have existed in each of the past five years.

Oregon needs these foreign language immersion programs to grow.

Read the rest of the article here.

This free, all day lecture is being sponsored by the San Francisco State University’s STARTALK project. STARTALK is a Presidential Initiative to Fund Summer Programs in Critical Languages including Chinese.

The Fundamentals: Second Language Acquisition

June 24, 2010 9:30am– 3:30pm

Sponsored by
STARTALK at San Francisco State University
Title III ELL Professional Development Project

Presenter:  Dr. Stephen Krashen

Description: Stephen Krashen is best known for developing the first comprehensive theory of second language acquisition, introducing the concept of sheltered subject matter teaching, and as the co-inventor of the Natural Approach to foreign language teaching. He has also contributed to theory and application in the area of bilingual education, and has done important work in the area of reading. He is the author of The Power of Reading. His recent papers can be found at http://www.sdkrashen.com.

The Fundamentals: Second Language Acquisition

This presentation will include an overview of second language acquisition, with a focus on the “Comprehension Hypothesis,” the hypothesis that we acquire language when we understand what we hear and what we read.  It will also include some of the important supporting evidence for the theory and application at the beginning level (Natural Approach, TPR, TPRS) and the intermediate level (sheltered subject matter teaching).

Location:  San Francisco State University, Humanities Auditorium 133.

Compensation: $100 stipend will be provided to School District teachers.

Directions: map and directions available at http://www.sfsu.edu/~sfsumap/

Contact Information:
Fanny Li
Program Coordinator
STARTALK at SFSU
415-338-7288
stteach@sfsu.edu

(and one of the best lede paragraphs I’ve seen on a story about Mandarin immersion)

Photo by Steven Lane

Teacher Hsin-yi Hu works with kindergarten students in Franklin Elementary’s first-year Chinese immersion program. She teaches Mandarin full-time to 24 pupils who will continue with her through first grade, while two more kindergarten sections are added next year.

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Room 100 inside Benjamin Franklin Elementary School is full of characters.

No, not quirky children.

Rather, the walls and desks blanketed with images of pets, balloons, numbers, people and everyday objects, each labeled in Chinese script.

And 24 kindergartners who laugh and learn as they spar with teacher Hsin-yi Hu in role play to stretch their vocabulary. Using colorful puppets, they growl as tigers or bark as dogs, always in character.

Read more here.

Wo jiao Maribel. Ni ji sui?

Alberto and Maribel, sixth-graders at the Pedro Garcia Rojas elementary school here in central Mexico, introduce themselves to each other in Mandarin Chinese.
Their class also recites numbers, clothing items and weather conditions in a language that, to them, is about as foreign as it gets.

Some, like Damaris De Luna Sanchez, 11, move their hands the way a conductor directs an orchestra, slicing through the air to help them reach the proper intonations, the staccato flats and singsong vowelish sounds.

Their enthusiastic teacher, Gerardo Saucedo, is not Chinese nor has he ever traveled to China, but he has long been fascinated by its language and use of stylized characters as an alphabet.

Read more here.