• This is coming out of the National Chinese Language Conference, happening this weekend in Washington D.C.
• Click here for the link.
• Journalists James Fallows of The Atlantic and John Pomfret of The Washington Post discuss the phenomenon that is China. Submit your questions!

Chinese Music & Arts
2010 Summer Day Camp
(For children ages from 7 to 14)
July 19 – August 27

Session I:   7/19~7/30 Chinese Classical
Music & Fine Art
Session II:  8/2~8/13 Chinese Folk Music &
Chinese Painting
Session III: 8/16~8/27 Chinese Pop Music &
Sketching
2010 Chinese Arts and Music Summer Camp is organized by a non-profit
organization Chinese Arts & Music Center (CAMC).  We offer three 2-week
summer programs for kids aged from 7 to 14. CAMC instructors will guide the
campers to have hands-on experience in Chinese music & fine arts. All kids will
experience the joy of working together, playing together and performing with friends for
the community.   Each Session has different focus field in music types and art forms
and will be conducted in Mandarin.

Space is limit, reserve your spot today!

Registration fee ($25/person) is waived for those who pay the deposits by June 1st, 2010.
Registration fee is also waived for ACE members, students from Starr King and Jose Ortega.
Morning extended care is available at $5/hr.
Snack will be provided, but not lunch.  Students have options to bring lunch or request the camp
to order lunch from a nearby restaurant.
We offer 10% discounts of tuition for deposit paid by 5/15.
Siblings, multiple sessions-students only pay registration for one person registration fee.

Camp Type: Day Camp 10 am ~ 4 pm
Cost Per Session: $260 (2 weeks)

CAMC instructors
Ms. Gangqin Zhao (Chinese music specialist) * Ms. Zheng Bao (Experienced professional in Fine Arts)

Camp Location: 500 Balboa Street (at 6th Ave.), San Francisco, CA 94118
For inquiries, call 415-666-3001 Or email to folkmelody@gmail.com
Harp (Guzheng), Dulcimar (Yangqin),Yueqin (Moon guitar), Hulusi (Wind gourd). Never played?
This is a fun and interactive jump-start. Experienced player? Study with the best local musicians
and perform in an ensemble. The 2-weeks session is a great introduction to Chinese Music into
young camper’s busy schedule.

2010国乐艺术夏令营
CAMC

Here’s a nice story in the Calgary Herald about families succeeding in maintaining their home languages. Here here!

=====

Matthew Singh jumps out of the car boiling over with excitement as he’s about to enter a large play area with a multitude of new toys. As he walks into the aptly named

Coffee and S’cream he jumps up and down, nearly bouncing off the walls with excitement. His one-year-old sister Milla stares at him with admiration. While his dad, Chad Singh, pays the $5.71 per child entrance fee, Matthew proclaims: “Ja chcem ice cream!” His mother, Christine Wielezynski Singh, looks down at her son and, in response to his half-Polish, half-English sentence, quickly quashes his demand for ice cream– lody in Polish–by answering him solely in her mother tongue. The translation: “Maybe later you can have ice cream at home.” The child nods and we follow him and his sister into the play area. Matthew hops into one of the plastic kid cars and starts zooming around, much to the chagrin of one of the owners of the N.W. cafe who, moments later, asks him to slow down. Singh goes up to his son and in a calm manner tells him in Hindi that he has to watch out for the other kids. Matthew nods again and continues on his way.

At three and a half years old, Matthew is trilingual. The couple uses a popular language-acquisition method called “one-parent-one-language,” in which the mother always speaks one language with the child while the father always speaks another, whether it’s English or, as in Matthew’s case, a third language.

Read more here.





From the website Blue Oregon

By Dave Porter of Portland, OR. Dave is a retired health administrator who advocates for Mandarin language education and study abroad programs in Oregon schools on his blog.

Sometimes seemingly small decisions have big repercussions. Such is Portland Public Schools annual decision not to expand its Mandarin immersion program at Woodstock Elementary School in SE Portland. Great powers can rise and fall on the accumulation of such seemingly small issues.

Each year for the past four years Portland Public Schools has been turning away at least another full class of kindergarten students whose parents want them to enter the Mandarin immersion program at Woodstock Elementary in SE Portland. The program currently takes only 60 new kindergarten students annually.

Here’s the data for the past four years:
2006-07: 60 openings, 109 applications;
2007-08: 60 openings, 106 applications;
2008-09: 60 openings, 89 applications;
2009-10: 60 openings, 84 applications meeting criteria, plus another 17 applications “criteria not met;” (which probably means the parents missed a required meeting).

read more here.

*** Come find out about 2010 Fall Enrollment – Only 24 spaces. ***

Broadway Elementary School

1015 Lincoln Blvd., Venice, CA 90291

Phone: (310) 392-4944  Fax: (310) 314-7349  Email: swang1@lausd.net

Contact Person:  Susan Wang, Principal 王校長

Pilot Mandarin Language Immersion Program

Community Informational Meeting

中英文同步教學實驗班 – 公眾會議

Please attend an informational meeting to be a part of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s efforts to create a pilot Mandarin language immersion program at Broadway Elementary School.  We need to exchange information with interested parents to plan the future development of this pilot program.

請踴躍參加此次

洛杉磯聯合學區–Broadway Elementary School”所舉辦之

“中英文同步教學實驗班”資訊會議,

您的參與將會成為此教學計畫的主要力量之一

我們需要有興趣的父母們交換彼此的意見與資訊,

以成為未來此計畫之發展方向

*********************************************************************

When:  Tuesday, April 27, 2010, 5:00 p.m. or Friday, April 30, 2010, 8:30 a.m.

時間;: 2010年,四月廿七日(星期二) 5:00 PM 或 2010年,四月三十日(星期五) 8:30 AM

Location:  Broadway Elementary School Auditorium

地點: Broadway Elementary School Auditorium

A nice rundown of Mandarin summer camps in the San Francisco bay area from the HaoMama blog.

Mandarin Summer Camps in Bay Area

Now that the rains have (mostly) left the Bay Area, summer is just around the corner (right?). For those who are looking for ways to keep little ones busy in summer months, I wanted to give a run-down of Mandarin immersion summer programs and camps in the area. A two-week (or longer) camp program can be a more manageable commitment for those who want to try out language immersion without committing to full-time school program. It can also be a gentler way to introduce foreign languages to kids in a more relaxed, fun setting.

Read more here.