From our friends at the Asia Society’s Chinese Language Initiative

A Road Map for Planning a Successful “DIY” Two-Way School-to-School Partnership Exchange Program: Part II

Timeline, Key Components and Other Tips

Please read more here.

I purely love these guys! And now their books are available in print format as well as e-readers.

Can you guess what my girls are going to be reading this summer?

http://mandarincompanion.com/blog/mandarin-companion-series-now-available-in-paperback/

Students practice language skills at fair
Dual language immersion brings students to UVU 0 Dual language immersion brings students to UVU 0 Dual language immersion brings students to UVU 0 Dual language immersion brings students to UVU 0 Dual language immersion brings students to UVU 0
Dual language immersion brings students to UVU 0
Sammy Jo Hester, Daily Herald
March 24, 2015. SAMMY JO HESTER, Daily Herald

OREM — College students aren’t really getting a lot younger. It just looked that way this week as nearly 2,000 fourth, fifth- and sixth-graders from across the state came to Utah Valley University’s campus. They were attending a world language farm for dual immersion language students.

Most days, those students attend classes in their schools, taught half a day in English and half a day in the language they choose to learn.

On two days this week, they participated in the fair, the first for those grade levels. Brigham Young University has hosted events for junior high and high school students.

“Dual language immersion has been going on about eight or 10 years now,” said Baldomero Lago, senior director of UVU’s International & Multicultural Studies department. “Some of the students wanted to participate at BYU, but that would make it way too large.”

Because of the age range, two approaches would be needed to provide the activities for all the students.

“I proposed that we do two programs to the state and the state assigned us to be the host institution for the dual language fair,” he said.

The State Board of Education invited UVU to host the fair more than a year ago, he said. Teams for several university departments have been planning and organizing the event since then.

Please read more here.

This is a superb course for teachers, especially those new to immersion. Taught by the great folks in Minnesota at the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition.

The deadline for sign up is May 29, so tell your principals now.

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June 22–26, 2015 (Teacher Session) June 22–23, 2015 (2-day Admin Session)
Target Audience: Pre-service and novice K–12 Chinese and Japanese immersion teachers, administrators, district personnel or policy makers, and specialist teachers in immersion schools. It is not meant for experienced immersion teachers.

New Chinese or Japanese immersion teachers and administrators will receive a research-based introduction to the challenges, options, and issues in the unique world of immersion education (K–12). Targeted institute participants include one-way (world language) and two-way immersion educators who teach subject matter through Chinese or Japanese for 50–100% of the school day and promote continued development of English (amount of instructional time in English varies by grade level).

On the first two days, the focus will be on issues of interest to new immersion teachers and administrators. Administrators and district personnel will have an opportunity to engage with key issues in immersion program design and implementation for character-based languages, and discuss strategies for meeting those challenges with an experienced immersion administrator. During the following three days, novice teacher participants will be introduced to effective practices that inform language and literacy-attentive curriculum development and instruction with non-cognate, character-based languages whose writing system differs from English.

More here.

Some parents have asked me about programs that require families to sign a contract, much as charter schools sometimes do, spelling out what’s expected of students and families at the beginning.

Here’s the webpage of a new Mandarin immersion program starting up in Garland, Texas.

As I’ve written in my book, families sometimes choose Mandarin immersion not so much for the language itself but for the type of students their children will be in school with. In Garland, it’s clearly going to be an academically focused, disciplined bunch of kids.

The Chinese Early Language and Immersion Network is asking for teacher input as it works to support Chinese in K – 12 programs. Please encourage your teachers and programs to go to their site and fill out the form.

http://asiasociety.org/chinese-language-initiatives/chinese-early-language-immersion-network

Next Steps committee nears goal: Officials to decide how to address San Mateo, Foster City school overcrowding
April 25, 2015, 05:00 AM By Austin Walsh Daily Journal

Residents have spoken and now it is time for officials in the San Mateo-Foster City Elementary School District to consider the feedback when developing strategies for how to best address overcrowded classrooms and campuses.

The Next Steps Advisory Committee wrapped up a second round of community outreach, which allowed members to gather feedback from residents regarding a variety of options targeted at solving problems caused by projected enrollment growth in coming years.

Committee members are charged with digesting the dialogue they had with the residents spread across nearly 20 community town hall meetings and forums in the last month, and then form a recommendation to the Board of Trustees regarding whether to pursue a bond measure that would fund building new facilities.

Residents gathered at College Park Elementary School Thursday, April 23 to express their opinion regarding the future of the campus, which officials are considering overhauling to offer a local school to the North Central neighborhood in San Mateo.

Currently the campus is home to a Mandarin immersion program, and a majority of students from the neighborhood are bused to a mix of other elementary schools throughout the district.

Please read more here.