Guest-Teaching Chinese, and Learning America

Matt Nager for The New York Times

Zheng Yue, who has been teaching Chinese in MacArthur High School in Lawton, Okla., working with a student, Raymond Veal.

By SAM DILLON

Published: May 9, 2010

LAWTON, Okla. — Zheng Yue, a young woman from China who is teaching her native language to students in this town on the Oklahoma grasslands, was explaining a vocabulary quiz on a recent morning. Then a student interrupted.

The New York Times

“Sorry, I was zoning out,” said the girl, a junior wearing black eye makeup. “What are we supposed to be doing?”

Ms. Zheng seemed taken aback but patiently repeated the instructions.

“In China,” she said after class, “if you teach the students and they don’t get it, that’s their problem. Here if they don’t get it, you teach it again.”

To read more, please click here.

Area students may get chance to learn Chinese

Ted Downing of Hilton Head Island has made more than 30 business trips to China over the past decade.

On all of them, he just didn’t know what to say.

He doesn’t speak Mandarin.

So he was thrilled when he learned two Beaufort County elementary schools might begin offering a program in Mandarin this fall.

That would give students interested in careers in international business, law or government an edge, he said.

The process of learning a language offers another benefit, said Downing, whose daughter will start at Hilton Head Island International Baccalaureate Elementary School this fall.

“It creates a challenge for a child,” he said. “I don’t know any other languages that are going to be as challenging as Chinese.”

The Mandarin program depends on the Beaufort County School District receiving federal and state funds. The district has applied for several grants to bring partial immersion programs in Mandarin to the district’s two international baccalaureate elementary schools — Hilton Head IB and Broad River Elementary.

In immersion programs, students study other subjects, such as math or social studies, in the target language.

The program would begin with a group of first-graders at the Hilton Head school and a group of kindergartners at Broad River, said Sean Alford, the district’s instructional services chief.

Alford said the program would be voluntary and immerse students in the language for part of the school day. The district hopes to eventually expand the program through middle or high school, he said.

From Friday’s Clare County Review:

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Farwell plans preschool, kindergarten program improvements

“Next year will prove to be an exciting year for our elementary [school] as there are two big program improvements that are being planned now for implementation in September,” said Farwell Superintendent Dave Peterson.

Information about the new programs was accidentally run as a Clare School column in the April 30 issue of the Review.

The first program, called Universal Pre School, will allow enrollment of four-year-old students, “filling a void in our pre-school program,” said Peterson.

The second new program will be the implementation of Mandarin Chinese, a combined course of language and mathematics, in the kindergarten program. Two parent meetings will be held on May 18 about the new Mandarin language and math program, one at 5 p.m. and the second at 7 p.m. Parents will have until May 21 to sign up for the new program, Peterson said.

“In September, our kindergarten students will be greeted by a certified teacher from China. The foreign language teacher will deliver two different programs,” Peterson explained. Twenty-two kindergarten students will participate in an “immersion program,” being taught math while “immersed” in the Mandarin language.

“If you were to observe the math class for these children you would hear that nearly 100 percent of the language being used is Mandarin. The beauty of this is that the children are learning the second language while learning math.”

Read more here.

STARTALK Summer Mandarin Academy at San Francisco State University extends an invitation to current 4th-7th graders to join a fun and innovative 4-week summer program to develop their Chinese proficiency. More information and application can be found at http://userwww. sfsu.edu/ ~stlearn/.

This sounds like an amazing program. They read comic books, watch Chinese videos, learn pop songs, become totally immersed in Chinese culture – and become much more fluent – but have a great time doing so.

Sunday, May 23, 2-5pm
Potrero Hill Neighborhood House
953 deHaro Street
Suggested Donation:  $10 adults, kids are free

Food!  Fun!
Entertainment!  Kids Activities

Silent Auction Items:

*Museums and Family Entertainment:
Disneyland, Great America, Gilroy Gardens
De Young/Legion of Honor Museums,
Asian Art Museum, SF Symphony,
House at Incline Village, NV.,
Chinatown Alleyway Tour

*Dining:
Soup of the month club,
Dinner of the month club,
Dinner parties, Liberty Cafe,
Pacific Catch Restaurant, Progressive Grounds Cafe,
Wine and Cheese AG Ferrari Wine & Cheese Tasting,
24th Street Cheese Company, Venga Empanadas

*Kids
Recess Urban, My Gym,
Shan-Yee Poon Ballet,
Wheel Kids, Project Commotion,
Kids’ CDs from Charity and the Jam Band and Laurie Berkner

*Plus Art, Jewelry, Massages, Hotel Packages and much more!

RAFFLE:
Grand prize: Playstation 3 plus games
1st prize: barbeque grill
<http://bbq-grill. wowshopper. com/htm-pages/ charcoal- grill-6000. htm>
2nd prizes: Storypeople art print, Highlights subscription, grown-up
and kids’ books, DVDs, games
3rd prizes: gift certificates to Bed, Bath&Beyond, Books Inc, and more.

Fremont Unified considers Mandarin-English immersion program

FREMONT — Wei-Lin Tong remembers speaking only Cantonese at home during her early years, but as soon as her older brother went to kindergarten, the kids switched to speaking English full time.