My pleas for information about Mandarin immersion schools in New York have been answered by some helpful parents — thanks all.

It’s helpful because finding information about Mandarin immersion schools in New York City isn’t easy. School web sites don’t offer up much and even schools where I’ve talked to parents and know there’s a program don’t mention that they have an immersion on their website. How do people find them? is my question.

That said, the New York City Department of Education (DOE) is the largest school district in the United States, serving 1.1 million students in over 1,800 schools, so I suppose it’s got bigger fish to fry.

The district has dozens of Dual Language programs in multiple languages, including Spanish, Mandarin Vietnamese, Russian and Urdu, among others. These programs  are composed of half native speakers of the target language and half English speakers, and are immersion.

There are also Transitional  Bilingual Education, which transition speakers of another language to English, as well as English as a New Language. Neither of these are immersion

New as of 2017:

PS/IS 102Q Bayview in Elmhurst, Queens, NYC, which began its  inaugural Kindergarten class in September of 2017.

May have begun 2018-2019 (I say “may” have begun because although although the new Superintendent announced these earlier this year, there’s nothing on any of the website that indicate that they actually teach Chinese, much less teach in Chinese. If you have any information about them, please contact me so I can update the listings.)

Here’s a recent article. And one from January.

Manhattan:

• The Riverside School for Makers & Artists—Chinese DL

Brooklyn:

• P.S. 896—Spanish and Chinese DL
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School—Chinese DL [Not sure if this is a continuation of other programs — more info would be helpful.]

Queens:

• P.S. 7 Louis F. Simeone—Chinese and Bengali DL
• P.S. 13 Clement C. Moore—Chinese DL

Mind you, a few of them don’t launch until next academic year, but every one on my newly-updated list seems very likely to start. The ones I’m not sure of I don’t include until they’re actually off the ground.

Here’s the full list: MIP list 2018-08-30.

August 28, 2018    Additions and changes.

ADDITIONS

• East Light Academy opens in Charleston, SC. This is a sister school to East Link Academy in Greenville, SC, and I believe also to East Voyager Academy in Charlotte, NC.
• Lam School, private K – 8 in Brooklyn, NY. This is the first U.S. outpost of a school with 5 campuses in Taipei in Taiwan.
• International Montessori School, Durham NC. Had Spanish and French immersion. Added Mandarin immersion in the past few years. Trying to get more information.
• Yi Hwang Academy of Language Excellence in Gwinnett Co., Georgia. Mandarin/Korean immersion opening in 2019-2020
• Science, Language & Arts International School launching a private K – 8 Chinese immersion program in Brooklyn in 2019-2020. It has a Mandarin Pre-K in place now and a long-time French immersion program.
• PS/IS 102Q Bayview School, Queens
  • I received a note from a parent at this school that 102Q has a new K-8 Mandarin immersion program. There’s nothing on the website to indicate it does and no one answers the phones, but that’s not uncommon with NYC schools. So, If anyone has more info on it, please pass along.

CHANGES:

• New name for Barnard Asian Pacific Language Academy, it’s now Barnard Mandarin Magnet Elementary School,
• Hopkins Public Schools in Hopkins, Minn.: Xin Xing Academy now feeds to a program at West Junior High which feeds to Hopkins High School. The Mandarin program is now up to 11^th grade.
• College Gardens Elementary School’s Mandarin immersion program in Rockville, Maryland has moved to Bayard Rustin Elementary School.

 

 

 

 

August 23, 2018 From: CBS2 Live

On Wednesday night, the board of trustees for the Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC Schools), voted to close PUC International Preparatory Academy (iPrep), located at 1800 Colorado Blvd. The closure took effect immediately Thursday. The new school year had just started up two days ago.

“Where am I going to leave her today?” parent Sandra Bairez told CBS2. “I have to call in sick.”

“This other school started like two weeks ago, what am I supposed to do now?” asked another angry mother. “Where do I take her, what do I do?”

iPrep needed 200 students to remain open, PUC Schools said in a news release. It only had 114 students as of this week.

Parents told CBS2 they had been urged to recruit more students, but had not been warned the situation was so dire. They said they bought uniforms and made childcare arrangements.

“We gave several communications to our families letting them know,” said Zenzontl Kuauhtzin, an administrator with PUC Schools, during a news conference during which he was interrupted by several angry parents.

Founded in 2016, iPrep was a K-8 Spanish-Mandarin dual immersion school.

“Enrollment is the largest source of funding for the school and with this level of enrollment, the program is not viable,” PUC wrote. “With so few students, it’s impossible to continue to operate and provide the types of programs that the students deserve.”

Please read more here.

From Global California 2030, a report written by the Communications and English Learner Support Divisions, California Department of Education.

Dual-language immersion programs most frequently use English and Spanish. But California also has programs that offer English/ Mandarin, English/Korean, English/Vietnamese, and English/ Portuguese, to name a few.

These programs, beginning in kindergarten, deliver instruction in both English and another language. Typically, they start with the majority of instruction in the other language and less in English. Gradually, instruction is half in each language, giving students uency in two languages. Students typically stay in the program throughout elementary school.

Researchers have found these programs to be extremely bene cial to students, helping them learn all subjects while also giving them the tools to more easily acquire a third language.

Requests by parents for these programs are already on the rise, especially since the passage of Proposition 58 removed barriers to setting up these programs. As part of Global California 2030, we are striving for even more dramatic growth, with the goal of quadrupling the number of programs from 407 in 2017 to 1,600 in 2030.

Of course, vastly expanding the number of students who speak two or more languages will require more teachers and more programs to train those teachers. In 2016, California had 30 state-approved programs. By 2030, we want that number to grow to 100.

More bilingual teachers means that every school where parents want a program will have teachers with the high levels of academic language skill and authorization to teach in the two languages. By 2030, we want to double the number of teachers authorized to teach two languages.

More language classes means parents who want particular types of programs or courses for their child will have access to them.

To read the full report, please click here.

This sounds like a wonderful program in Boston. Though I have to point out that it isn’t immersion. Chinese is being taught as a foreign language, for one hour a day, according to the school’s website. Which counts as what educators call FLES (Foreign Language in Elementary School.)

Immersion requires that at least half the school day be in Mandarin and that academic courses be TAUGHT IN Mandarin. So you don’t just teach Mandarin, you teach IN Mandarin. For example, math class is taught in Mandarin, or science class. Not just Mandarin Language Arts.

I see this confusion a lot. It’s because today almost all foreign language classes are taught by teachers who speak only the language in class. When I took German in high school, our teacher spoke mostly in English, explaining how German worked. Today, the teacher would speak only in German, using simple words to get across ideas. 

So it’s an immersive language class, but it isn’t immersion. 

Which doesn’t mean what they’re doing in Boston doesn’t sound great. But don’t let someone tell you an hour a day of language class is immersion. It isn’t.

The folks at Boston Renaissance Charter Public School seem quite straightforward about it. There are some private schools out there who claim they’re offering immersion when they actually aren’t (and charging immersion prices for it….)

Here’s how Boston Renaissance Charter Public School describes its Mandarin offerings, FYI:

Our goal was to begin with a strong foundation and expand the program by adding one grade each year. We began with the youngest students, 88 K1 and K2 students began learning Chinese as a second language in school year 2009-2010. In school year 2010-2011, the students who learned Chinese increased to 392 students, including all K1, K2 and Gr. 1 students. These students received Chinese instruction three times a week for a total of 90 minutes. In school year 2011-2012, 468 students from all K1, K2, Gr. 1 and 2 received Chinese instruction. The class was scheduled five times a week for 30 minutes per class. K1-Gr. 1 students receive Chinese instruction 5 times a week for 30 minutes per class. Students in Gr. 2 and 3 receive Chinese each trimester for 5 times a week for 55 minutes per class. Students in the upper grades are allowed to continue taking Chinese as an elective.

 

Teacher’s Perspective: How My School’s Chinese Immersion Program Is Paving a Pathway to Global Citizenship for Inner-City Students

Their educations often hamstrung by their zip codes, generations of urban kids in places like the Boston neighborhood where I teach graduate from public high schools having passed conventional subjects like math and English, but lacking an awareness and appreciation of other languages and societies that would surely enhance their chances of success. Many complete grades K-12 perhaps able to navigate a college campus or the job market, but with little education about the wider world, other than, perhaps, a few years of basic Spanish or French.

As students move on and become participants in the global economy, that lack of exposure to other cultures is sure to hinder their capacity to fully engage and thrive. In an increasingly complicated world, we should be preparing and inspiring young people to make contributions to global understanding, prosperity, and peace.

For almost a decade, Boston Renaissance Charter Public School, where I’ve taught since 2014, has taken a different approach. Located in a transformed mill building, Boston Renaissance educates 900 children from neighborhoods citywide. Many have rarely traveled outside the city, let alone visited the other side of the planet. But, starting in pre-kindergarten, every one of them learns Mandarin Chinese through a unique, internationally recognized program that also immerses them in Chinese culture.

Please read more here.

from our friends at CELIN, the Chinese Early Language & Immersion Network, at the Asia Society.

Global Ambassadors Language Academy (GALA)

My favorite city in North America (and that’s saying a lot as I come from Seattle) is Vancouver, B.C. Would that I spoke Mandarin, was a teacher and had a work visa.

Given as none of those things are true, I put this out to the universe of Mandarin-speaking teachers who might have (or know people who have) Canadian work visas.

The Mandarin-immersion program in Vancouver B.C. (not to be confused with the one in Vancouver, Washington) is hiring one to three teachers. You can see their job description here.

The program begins at Norquay and Jamison Elementary schools. It continues at Windermere Secondary School.

Here’s an article about the program.  And a brochure for Jamison.

The only thing I can’t figure out is why, with 43% of the population having Asian heritage, there aren’t more. The closest city to Vancouver in terms of having an Asian population is San Francisco, where we are 33% Asian. And San Francisco has nine public Chinese immersion schools (five Cantonese, four Mandarin) and three private, all Mandarin immersion.