Florence boy finds practical use for his classroom lessons at Chinese Immersion Charter School

JERREY ROBERTS

By GENA MANGIARATTI
Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
(Published in print: Thursday, May 21, 2015)
Email
Print

5 Comments
Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on gmailMore Sharing Services
20
NORTHAMPTON — When 12-year-old Hunter Palm visited China for two weeks in April with his mother and grandmother, the locals, hearing him speak Chinese, asked: “How long have you been living in China?”

“Hunter was our interpreter, thank goodness,” his grandmother, Jody O’Brien, said at her grandson’s home on Maple Ridge Road in Florence. “If we hadn’t had Hunter, we wouldn’t have been able to ride the bus or order food.”

For O’Brien, 79, a nurse from East Longmeadow, the trip was her sixth assignment with Global Volunteers, a service organization that sends volunteers abroad. On previous trips, she has volunteered as a nurse in a public health clinic in Mexico and worked with children with disabilities in an orphanage in Romania. She has also worked in schools in St. Lucia, the Cook Islands, and the Chinese city Kunming.

This time, her daughter Kelly Palm and grandson, a sixth-grader at the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School in Hadley, came with her. The three generations taught English to students at the Xi’an Biomedical Technical College, in Xi’an — a city of over 8 million in central China’s Shaanxi province.

Please read more here.

More Information available here.

As far as I know, the U.K. doesn’t yet have any Mandarin immersion K – 8 schools. The one that had been proposed, Marco Polo Academy, didn’t get off the ground. And I love it that this preschool is being launched by a man with such a lovely Welsh name as Cennydd — Beth

UK’s first Mandarin-English bilingual nursery established to meet growing demand for second language learning in early years

04-Aug-15
Article By: Ellie Spanswick, News Editor

In May, earlier this year, father of one Cennydd John opened the UK’s first bilingual Mandarin-English day nursery in East London after discovering many of his local provisions were unable to provide the type of childcare he sought for his young son.

Cennydd John

Mr John has more than 10 years’ worth of experience, academically and professionally in all things Chinese, a Masters in Chinese and distinction in oral Mandarin, in addition to experience running his own educational consultancy, helping Chinese students secure places at UK and American universities.

Speaking about his decision to establish the innovative new nursery, he said: “I created Hatching Dragons when I was looking for childcare for my son. I felt so un-inspired by the provisions I looked at, none of them were offering anything different than the care I could offer him at home. Although they could provide care for my son, they weren’t gifted in early years education or helping children develop.”

Hatching Dragons was created on the principle of providing children with a full Mandarin-English immersion experience all day–every day, ensuring that language is not taught, but picked up through daily activities within the nursery environment. The majority of children at the nursery come from families where Mandarin is not spoken.

Please read more here.

This is a fascinating trend. I presume the high school is not overcrowded, and presumably this brings in money, as well as adding an interesting cultural experience for the high school students.  I keep saying there’s an opportunity for someone to create an immersion boarding school for English and Chinese-speaking students in the U.S., though I’m not sure how the Chinese families would feel about having their kids take any classes in Chinese.

The Marshfield School District is working to develop a program for Chinese students to attend the high school for the 2016-2017 school year.

Through a partnership with the University of Wisconsin, the Marshfield School District plans to develop a program for Chinese students to pay tuition to attend classes and graduate from Marshfield High School, said Mike Nicksic, an assistant principal at the school who is involved in the immersion program. Following graduation, the Chinese students could qualify to attend college at the University of Wisconsin-Marshfield/Wood County.

Marshfield’s sky of stars surprises Chinese students
Liz Welter, News-Herald Media 4:22 p.m. CDT July 27, 2015

MARSHFIELD – The glow of the nighttime sky with its vast array of twinkling stars is a new sight for the 16 teenage students from China who are participating this summer in an English immersion program at Marshfield High School.

“We don’t see stars,” said Zhang Le Tao, 17, who prefers the nickname George. The air and light pollution in his home city create a haze so the stars aren’t visible, he said.

His hometown in southeastern China, Zhiangjiagang, has about 1.3 million people, plus skyscrapers and heavy vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian traffic.

“The environment here (is) very nice,” George said while he and the students were at the district’s school forest Friday. George looked up to the sky and said, “Very blue. Clouds very white. Not like China. Here, the air (is) fresh.”

Please read more here.

Uploaded: Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 7:44 am

Survey: Differing visions for world-language programs

Palo Alto students, parents and teachers weigh in on immersion versus traditional language instruction

by Elena Kadvany / Palo Alto Weekly

Uploaded: Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 7:44 am

Entrepreneurial mom pairs Mandarin tutors with immersion students

Palo Altan finds business opportunity in daughters’ educational needs

by Elena Kadvany / Palo Alto Weekly

Layla Al-Khafaji, 6, listens to PandaTree Mandarin tutor Hannuo Wu lead a game during a lesson via Skype at her Palo Alto home on July 14. Photo by Veronica Weber.

 

Please read more here.

Chinese American International School To Debut New Middle School At Turk & Gough

Did you know that the nation’s first Mandarin immersion school is located in Hayes Valley? Meet the Chinese American International School (CAIS), a private school for pre-K through 8th grades where classes are taught in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.

CAIS opened on Laguna Street in 1981, a time when language-immersion schooling was unorthodox even for the most hard-charging Bay Area parents. When CAIS moved to its current space at 150 Oak St. in 1997, administrators worried they would never enroll enough students to fill the six-story building. Ten years and thousands of applications later, CAIS has had no choice but to expand—first to 52 Waller St., and now to 888 Turk St.

Please read more here.