Mandarin Immersion Parents Council

Information for parents of kids in Mandarin immersion education

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  • St. Paul, Minn. Mandarin immersion school expanding

    Yinghua Academy expansion underway

    September 18, 2013

    Susan Berg (Photo by Gain Olson)

    Northeast resident and parent Jennifer Shadowens said that her two children giggle when she tries to speak Chinese to them.

    Both youngsters are students at Yinghua Academy, a K-8 Chinese immersion public charter school at 1616 Buchanan St. NE. Shadowens, who is Yinghua’s board chair, said she doesn’t mind when her attempts to replicate the language’s tonal sounds amuse her kids.

    “It’s empowering for them to be experts at something.” She added that she and her husband—who met in a Greek language class in Athens—resolved that their children would learn another language when they were young. “The program has helped them be successful. It makes learning a language a way of life. Now they want to learn Spanish and Nepali. I love it that my kids think it’s normal.”

    Please read more here.

  • China Studies Seminars from the Asia Society

    Beyond Pedagogy: Content Matters in Chinese 
    By Yun Qin
    The linguistic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, “The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” If we begin with the understanding that students learn a new language in order to experience a bigger world, then it follows that language teachers should not teach languages with the final goal being language acquisition alone. Rather, teachers are tasked with showing students how to use languages as a tool to explore different life directions, to expand their minds, and to push their students beyond their limits. Most teacher-training events I have attended focus on teaching methodologies—in other words, “how to teach.” But without a focus on what to teach, the how to teach falls flat.

    To provide an answer to this question of what to teach, the Chinese Language Initiatives team at Asia Society has designed a series of China Studies Seminars. Our goal is to help Chinese language teachers gain a deeper understanding and knowledge of modern China—of Chinese language and Chinese culture per se, as well as to guide teachers to integrate both traditional and contemporary cultural elements into their Chinese classrooms. This summer we facilitated the first seminar in Shanghai. In the coming months, we will share reflections from our participants, and give you a taste of what they experienced through interviews with them and the seminar experts.Read on for details of the seminar, and watch a video to hear from the participants themselves.


  • See how other schools do it

    A nice roundup of the programs in Seattle and elsewhere, from our friends at The Chinese Early Language and Immersion Network at the Asia Society. Their site is always worth visiting.

    More here.

     

    CELIN Connection

    We hope that the school year is going well and that you and your students are enjoying many rich and exciting experiences learning and using Chinese!

    Program Profiles
    This month we are pleased to feature a Program Profile about the Mandarin Immersion Programs in Seattle, Washington, which serve students in grades K–7 and are expanding to higher grades. Started in 1995 by General John Stanford, then superintendent of Seattle Public Schools, the programs started with Spanish immersion and expanded to Japanese and then to Mandarin. The programs receive funding from many sources and offer rich opportunities for Seattle students to learn and use Chinese in the United States and Chinese-speaking countries. You can also read about other program profiles here.

    The staff of the Mandarin Immersion Programs in Seattle are pleased to share the following curriculum resources:

    Many additional resources are available in our collection of curricula and curriculum resources available from national organizations, states, districts, and schools. We believe that you will find this resource to be helpful. We would love to know about, and make available to others, curricula that you use in your Chinese language learning context. Please send your information to us at celin@asiasociety.org. Thank you!

    Don’t forget to visit the CELIN Program Directory to document your Chinese early language and immersion program or to search for other programs in your area or across the United States.

    Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

    –Shuhan Wang and Joy Peyton

  • A parent letter about a Mandarin program being cancelled in Idaho

    Dr. Ranells’ recent decision to cancel the Mandarin Chinese Immersion program at Gateway Elementary will be an incredible loss for West Ada School District families and the Treasure Valley. Her decision eliminates a unique opportunity for our children to master skills that will position them to succeed in a global workforce and to grow Idaho businesses in the global market.

    The program has a full curriculum, proper textbooks and momentum; why would Dr. Ranells choose to scrap it now? The Chinese program began seven years ago, expanding academic opportunities for our youngest students.

    When the District failed to support the growing program with appropriate resources, many parents jumped in, worked with the Gateway staff and the District, and the program grew stronger. The Chinese program is ready to flourish, now that the basic foundation has been built, there is community support, and extra funding options exist.

    Dr. Ranells claims that the program is not sustainable based on student numbers for the past three years, but she ignores all the work done by teachers, parents and the principal in the past two years. The program is sustainable. If Dr. Ranells would look forward, the Treasure Valley would benefit from a flourishing Chinese program.

    LAUREN GUSINOW, BOISE

    You can see the letter here.

  • LA Mandarin immersion program might have to share with charter

    Parents fear for dual-language Mandarin program if charter joins campus

    Posted on April 8, 2016 12:42 pm by 

    CastelarSchoolProtest

    Angelica Lopez Moyes is amazed that her 1st-grade son can speak Mandarin. But she is concerned that his dual-language immersion program at Castelar Street Elementary School could  be jeopardized if a charter is co-located on the campus.

    Castelar, founded in 1882 and the second-oldest school in Los Angeles, has 570 students and is at about 75 percent capacity. Under Proposition 39, passed in 2000, the remaining space can be given to a charter.

    Please read more here.

  • Boise, Idaho Mandarin program to shut down

    West Ada to wind down Chinese language program

    BY BILL ROBERTS

     

    The West Ada School District will begin ramping down its Chinese immersion program at Gateway Elementary School beginning with kindergartners in fall 2017, district officials say.

    Students enrolled in the fall will be able to attend, but the district will not offer enrollment to kindergarteners beginning in 2017.

    The program will continue for an additional five years to serve any of the students that remain in the school, said Eric Exline, district spokesman. The program began about seven years ago as one of several magnet programs that were meant to pull students away from overcrowded schools in the western part of the district and place them in less crowded schools on the district’s eastern side.

    The district doesn’t have enough students in the program to make it viable, KIVI, Channel 6, reported.

    Extension of the Chinese program into middle school never materialized because not enough students enrolled, Exline said.

    Read more here.

  • The Prince and the Pauper – in easy Chinese

    Our friends in Shanghai at the Mandarin Companion have been busy translating and they’ve come out with their latest book, The Prince and the Pauper.

    I love this series on an iPad because you can click on difficult words and get the translations. But there’s also an element of “I read a whole book myself” that comes with the print version.

    If you’ve got upper grade kids, see what they think.

    Beth

    Next Level 1 Title: “The Prince and the Pauper”

    The next Mandarin Companion story will be Mark Twain’s classic “The Prince and the Pauper” as a level 1 book. The original story follows a two young boys, one a street beggar and the other the next king of England. During a chance encounter, they decide to change places, a situation that temporarily, but drastically, alters the lives of both.

    We are really looking forward to bringing this book to life. It presents many opportunities to introduce intricacies of Chinese culture as we adapt the story to the Chinese courts of nobility. We plan to have this title released by summer of this year. We are also in the process of selecting the next level 2 story. Stay tuned!

    See more here.

     

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