Information for parents of kids in Mandarin immersion education

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  • Principal at one of the nation’s oldest public Chinese immersion schools to retire

    The dates in this story are a little hard to follow. The first Cantonese immersion program in the San Francisco Unified School District was a West Portal Elementary school, in 1984. That program continues to this day.

    Principal Szeto was hired to work at West Portal in 1986. But the program was just a strand in a larger school and Szeto had a vision of a whole school immersion K – 8 environment that would better allow for immersion. She fought for years to convince the school district to create such a school which it only did in 1995, when the Chinese Immersion Public School opened in what had been Columbus School.

    It was later renamed Alice Fong Yu after the first Chinese-American teacher to teach at a San Francisco public school, in 1962. Note that the school had formerly been known as the Oriental Public School, part of the segregated school system created in 1859 in San Francisco for Chinese, Japanese and Korean students.

    Note that “alternative school” is an old term from the 1970s and early 1980s in SFUSD for schools that offered specialized magnet or other programs.

    The first Mandarin immersion school in the country was the private Chinese American International School, founded in 1981 as the Chinese Bilingual School. San Francisco didn’t get a public Mandarin immersion school until 2005 when a program was opened at Starr King Elementary School.

    All that said, Principal Szeto is a force to be reckoned with in immersion education and she created a model for a whole-school, public K-8 program that thrives today. Alice Fong Yu remains one of the most requested schools in the district. for the 2025-2026 school year, 141 students applied for 22 Kindergarten spots.

    San Francisco Chronicle by Ko Lyn Cheang, June 16, 2025

    When Liana Szeto first stepped into the aging brick building in San Francisco that would become the nation’s first Chinese immersion public school, it looked “like a prison.” But the first-time principal had a vision for what the building in the Golden Gate Heights neighborhood could become: a home for the roughly 175 families who’d entrusted her with an unprecedented task.

    In the three decades since then, Alice Fong Yu Alternative School has grown to about 600 students. It’s been recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School and California Distinguished School. A playground has been added, along with a wraparound balcony and a middle school, which opened in 2000 and means it now serves K-8 students. 

    The school is now far from the only Chinese immersion public school in the country or in San Francisco, where 13 other public schools offer Mandarin or Cantonese immersion programs.

    Please read more here.

  • 110 years of “The Language Pledge” at Middlebury

    Middlebury College’s language summer camps are legendary. I still remember when a guy who was in my Mandarin class at the University of Washington disappeared over the summer and came back talking like he’d been in Beijing, but said he’d been in Vermont – I was very confused. I had no idea how old the programs were. Their “language pledge,” that you speak only the language you’re there to learn, is famed in language-learning circles.

    June 21 marks the first student arrival day for the Middlebury Language Schools, known internationally for their full immersion approach to language teaching. This summer the Language Schools will welcome over 1,400 students and 300 faculty and staff to the campuses of Middlebury College, Bennington College, and the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS).

    Please read more here.

  • Update on Wyoming’s only Mandarin immersion program

    Cowboy State Daily, Dale Killingbeck

    January 27, 2025

    Casper Elementary School Is Only Public School In State To Offer Mandarin In Dual Language Immersion

    Paradise Valley Elementary School in Casper is the only public school in Wyoming that offers Mandarin Chinese in a dual-language immersion setting where students spend half the day learning that language and the other half in English.

    CASPER — At a recent Paradise Valley Elementary School open house, Michael and Ruth Capshaw, and their 4-year-old daughter Lyra were excited about the potential for her to start learning to speak Mandarin.

    They were greeted by native-speaking Chinese teachers in the immersion classroom and on the walls were Chinese characters next to words and cartoon graphics. A crafted Chinese dragon model sat on a top of a bookcase.

    The Casper elementary represents the only public school in Wyoming that gives parents an option to have their child taught Mandarin in a dual-language immersion setting where students spend half the day learning the language and the other half in English.

    Please read more here.

  • I think Mandarin immersion has arrived – you can now read a romance novel set at an MI school

    A new career. A new school.
    And a very inconvenient new crush.

    I’m not sure I could have envisioned, back in 2005 when I first started going to meetings with the San Francisco Unified School District about starting a Mandarin immersion programs here, that twenty years later I’d be reading a romance novel set at a Mandarin immersion grade school.

    And that one of its plot points would be the struggle to get a school district to create a middle school follow on so students had a chance to continue Chinese after fifth grade. Admittedly, it’s a minor plot point, but wow, it certainly resonated.

    Clearly, The Teacher’s Match was written by someone who’s lived this. And indeed, she has. Kristi Hong was born to Taiwanese immigrant parents, grew up in Michigan and is Mandarin immersion parent.

    Her novel definitely shows that – this is someone who’s spend time in MI schools and knows the issues they face. There’s even a dragon boat race and a fifth grade trip to Taiwan.

    Mind you, it’s a Harlequin romance, so it’s a little fantasy based. The principle is 100% behind the school, there doesn’t seem to be any community pushback and at least some of the fifth graders have beautiful Chinese calligraphy. On the other hand, I kept seeing Jack Sun as Nick Young in Crazy Rich Asians as I read it, which was kind of fun.

    I’m more a science fiction reader, but this was a lovely book and the first I’ve found that’s set in a Mandarin immersion school. I hope there are more to come – here’s to being mainstream!

    And here’s a story about the author, and the book. Please read here.

  • A look at Seattle’s dual language programs

    Dual Language Programs Empower Students with Bilingualism

    Seattle Public Schools: January 8, 2025

    Seattle Public Schools offers K-12 dual language immersion pathways in Spanish, Japanese, and Mandarin

    Dual Language Programs Empower Students with Bilingualism

    It’s time for math at McDonald International Elementary, and Miwa Casper is breezing through her lesson with ease. The 5th-grade Japanese immersion teacher prompts her students to respond, and they all do – but not in English. In this class, students can only answer in Japanese.

    Seattle Public Schools serves more than 6,700 English language learners who come from 159 different countries and speak 158 languages and dialects across the district.  

    Please read more here.

  • Wow, Anchorage is on fire when it comes to immersion

    There are districts (and indeed whole states) that do K-12 language immersion well. New York City, Portland, Oregon. Minnesota. Utah (which has immersion is on steroids).

    And then there’s Alaska. I’m not sure how I missed just how remarkable their program is. Anchorage is a city of 286,000 and the Anchorage School District serves approximately 43,700 students across 96 schools.

    And my goodness do they have immersion. Seven (!) languages, including Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, French, German and Yup’ik. Not only that, but unlike far too many districts, they are committed to offering immersion all the way through high school, instead of petering out in middle school.

    Which isn’t to say the programs aren’t under threat. There was concern they’d be cut in 2022 due to budget issues and again this year. But so far they seem to be holding on.

    Here are all the programs, and their progression through the grades:

    Japanese K – 12

    Sand Lake Elementary • Mears Middle School • Dimond High School

    Russian K – 12

    Turnagain Elementary School • Romig Middle School • West High School

    Spanish K – 12

    Chugiak Elementary School • Mirror Lake Middle School • Chugiak High School

    and

    Government Hill Elementary School • Romig Middle School • West High School

    German K – 12

    Rilke Schule German Charter School • Service High School

    Chinese (adding grade 9 in 2025-26)

    Scenic Park Elementary School • Begich Middle School • Bartlett High School

    Yup’ik (adding grade 7 in 2025-26)

    College Gate Elementary • Wendler Middle School

    French (adding grade 6 in 2025-26)

    O’Malley Elementary • Goldenview Middle School

  • Help the new Mandarin Consortium with a survey about Mandarin immersion schools – make sure yours is included

    There’s a new, gaping hole in the Mandarin immersion world and an ad hoc group of educators has come together to try to fill it. Their first effort is a survey of Mandarin immersion schools – and they’re asking parents and staff in those schools to help.

    Shuhan Wang has been active in Chinese language education issues for decades. She was executive director of the Asia Society’s Chinese Early language and Immersion Network, which published briefs about immersion education and helped create online directories of programs nationwide.

    Jiahang Li is a professor of teacher education and outreach coordinator of the Asian Studies Center at Michigan State University.

    Together, they’re launching a survey of Mandarin immersion schools in the United States to document the programs’ needs.

    As a starting point they’re using the list of Mandarin immersion schools I keep here at the Mandarin Immersion Parents Council, together with now-outdated data from CELIN.

    But their goal is larger, to get a sense of what challenges these programs are facing and what can be done to bolster them.

    The aim to fill a newly-emerged hole in the Chinese immersion world. For years, the Asia Society has been a staunch supporter of Mandarin immersion in grade school and high school. It sponsored the Chinese Early language and Immersion Network, published briefs about immersion education and helped create online directories of programs nationwide.

    Of course the Asia Society does many things in addition to that and has long been a vital source of information and study about Asian politics, history and culture.

    Unfortunately for K – 12 schools, it has now pivoted away from its work on language immersion, ending its work on Mandarin immersion as part of a general move towards “Navigating Shared Futures,” meant to emphasize pathways for Asia and the world to collaborate.

    Given that, Wang and Li have launched an ad hoc group called (for now) the Mandarin Consortium. They hope to eventually set up a non-profit that can help fill some of the gap left by the Asia Society but initially want to get a baseline sense of what’s going on in the world of Mandarin immersion in the K – 12 realm.

    “We need the numbers to strategize and do advocacy,” said Wang.

    You can find a link to their survey here.

    It’s aimed at teachers or administrators, as many of the questions center on textbooks, teacher hiring and other issues programs face. However they hope parents can bring it to the attention of staff at their schools, to help get as broad an overview as possible.

    The goal is to have programs complete the survey by the end of April. Its about four pages long and shouldn’t require a big investment of time. Teachers are welcome to complete it in either English or Chinese (or both) whichever they feel more comfortable in.

    Those with more questions can reach them here:

    Shuhan Wang, Ph.D. ELE Consulting International, shuhancw@gmail.com

    Jiahang Li, Ph.D., Michigan State University, jiahang@msu.edu

    Here’s the announcement in Chinese:

    尊敬的教育界同仁：

    自1981年加州旧金山的中美国际学校（Chinese American International School,

    CAIS）创立以来，经由许多公立学校、特许学校、私立学校，学区，以及州和联邦政

    府、非政府组织大量投入的人力、资金和资源，中文沉浸式教育领域迅速建立发展。有关

    学校和学生成绩的研究报告亦显示了中文沉浸式项目的卓越成效。然而，近年来越来越多

    的中文沉浸式项目遇到了前所未有的挑战。我们必须全力保护中文沉浸式项目，因为它们对个人和社会都有极大的贡献。如今，记录

    并研究这些项目的必要性比以往任何时候都更加紧迫。因此，王淑涵博士（ELE

    Consulting International）与李佳行博士（密西根州立大学) 开展专项调查，通过收集中

    文沉浸式项目的信息，来更新和完善普通话家长委员会（Mandarin Parent Council）和

    亚洲协会幼龄和沉浸项目大联网（CELIN）已经收集的相关信息。我们希望全面并系统化

    地收集美国中文沉浸式项目的信息，包括项目基本情况、取得的成就、当前面临的挑战、

    实际的需求以及对未来的发展规划。

    我们诚挚地邀请您参与这项重要研究。您提供的信息将帮助我们准确了解全美中文沉浸式

    教育的现状与需求，提出有针对性的建议和策略，以推动中文沉浸式教育的可持续发展。

    研究成果将通过适当渠道公开分享。

    1. 请点击填写问卷

    参与方式：

    2. 欢迎将问卷转发给您认识的中文沉浸式项目教师和管理人员，邀请他们填写。

    问卷截止日期：2025年4月30日

    让我们共同努力，确保美国所有的中文沉浸式项目都参加填写信息。 感谢您的支持！

    王淑涵博士，ELE Consulting International，shuhancw@gmail.com

    李佳行博士，密西根州立大学，jiahang@msu.edu