Natalia Alamdari Delaware News Journal

June 9, 2021

After successfully reversing the district’s decision to end the Chinese immersion program at Red Clay’s Linden Hill Elementary, parents are now trying to recruit enough kindergarteners to keep the program alive.

In the months since the district unexpectedly cut – and then reinstated – the program, a steering committee of parents, advocates and district leaders reached a possible solution. 

For students already enrolled, the program would continue. 

But in order to keep the program going, 50 incoming kindergarteners in the school’s Pike Creek attendance zone must opt into Chinese immersion. 

Please read more here.

Parents fight closure of program – more here.

More on Delaware Mandarin immersion programs here.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vxKLT2nmZ-duWPKZt0orFsKiKwKu9P7F/view

The popular public school program in Minnesota draws more open-enrolled students than any other elementary school in its district.

By JOSH VERGES 

Pioneer Press March 9, 2021

St. Paul Public Schools is moving forward with two costly construction projects and further delaying several others following an external review of its facilities work.

District leaders on Tuesday unveiled a new five-year construction schedule that features renovations estimated at $49.8 million for Ramsey Middle School and $31 million for Jie Ming Mandarin Immersion Academy.

The district’s previous facilities plan, approved by the school board in October 2018, estimated the Ramsey project would cost $23.5 million and Jie Ming $6.5 million.

Please read more here.

Most of us with students in Mandarin immersion can’t read to our kids in Chinese, or play games with them in Chinese or do much beyond making sure they do their homework.

Thankfully, a whole raft of movies are now available in Mandarin, making “Mandarin movie night” a much easier thing than it was even five hears ago.

Here’s a nicely curated list of family-friendly movies that are either in Mandarin or have Mandarin dubbing available. Generally speaking Mandarin subtitles aren’t so helpful for kids because they just listen in English. Though playing a movie in Mandarin and having the subtitles going is a nice way to reinforce characters.

You can also play the movie in Mandarin with English subtitles, which the parents read while the kids listen (though this depends on how fast your kids read.)

These come from the mom at the Mama Baby Mandarin website.

20+ Family-friendly movies to watch in Mandarin Chinese

And here are a bunch of Mandarin dramas that are more for grown-ups, but would give you a nice sense of contemporary life in China, and you can watch them with subtitles. They might also be appropriate for high school students.

22 Binge-worthy Mandarin dramas to watch now

As they said on their annual scholarship award ceremony site, “Who would have believed that an upstart language learning experience in a prairie city would become the “best Chinese language program outside of China”?

The Edmonton Public Schools, in the Canadian province of Alberta, has 2,165 students enrolled in 14 schools, 1,923 graduates and this year the parent group, the Edmonton Chinese Bilingual Education Association, awarded $356,050 in scholarship.

Not bad for a program that launched in the fall fo 1982 with one school.

Edmonton Public Schools offers a Chinese Bilingual Program that graduates students students with a level of ability that would allow them to study in science and mathematics universities in China, according to the ECBEA.

Edmonton also offers American Sign Language, Arabic, French, German, Hebrew and Spanish immersion.

And here’s a video about their program.

Global Village Academy in Northglenn returns to in-person learning

The language immersion charter school began the school year remotely which was tough for many students.

Byron Reed February 26, 2021 9News

NORTHGLENN, Colo. — Global Village Academy (GVA) in Northglenn is a language immersion charter school that recently returned to in-person learning at the beginning of February.

GVA serves around 820 kindergarten through 8th grade students predominately from the north Denver metro area with 45% of their student population being English language learners.

Please read and watch here.

By Julie Slama | j.slama@mycityjournals.com

At Draper Elementary, a long-standing tradition has been gathering in the multipurpose room celebrating Chinese language and culture for Chinese New Year.

This year, the school’s Chinese New Year celebration will look different. Each dual immersion classroom will still perform, but it will be recorded. Then, all the recordings will be edited together and shared on Feb. 16 in the classrooms. It also will be made available to online students and parents, said Cyndi Lin, fourth-grade teacher who is coordinating the production.

“Because of COVID, we needed to change the platform,” she said. “And with social distancing, we will keep it simple and have students sing a song or perform in their own seats.”

As of press deadline, the program was still being finalized, but Lin anticipated first-graders singing “Jasmine Flower,” third-graders stacking cups, fourth-graders performing the lion dance and fifth-graders reciting Chinese poetry. She said second-grade, which usually performs with fans, is brainstorming what will work since they need to social distance.

Please read more here.

Guy Emanuele Elementary School in Union City, California has launched a Mandarin immersion program. It began in the fall of 2020.

The program will use simplified characters and begin at 80 of the school day in Mandarin, 20% in English. That will gradually decline to 50/50% by 5^th grade.

Launching fall of 2021.

Union City is a small city of about 75,000 central to Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose.

The district envision a program that will extend through 12th grade. “It leads to a Seal of Biliteracy to help students stand out in college as well as in their careers,” said Clinton Puckett, the school’s principal.

They have a nice website that includes a video about the program which you can see here. The 4-year-olds telling you about what they can do and what they like are adorable!