Mandarin Immersion Parents Council

Information for parents of kids in Mandarin immersion education

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  • Seattle-area school district makes language immersion a priority

    Language immersion a priority for Bellevue School District

    BY JILLIAN RAFTERY, KIRO Radio Editor | April 9, 2015 @ 2:24 pm

    Puesta Del Sol Elementary is the region’s only language immersion program in a public school system where students start learning Spanish in kindergarten. (KIRO Radio/Jillian Raftery)

    Right away, visitors will notice that Nicole Perriella’s second grade classroom in Bellevue is a little different.

    At Puesta Del Sol Elementary, instead of reading, writing, and arithmetic, it’s “leyendo, escribiendo, y las matemáticas.”

    It’s the region’s only language immersion program in a public school system where students start learning Spanish in kindergarten. They’re fluent by the fifth grade, and go on to take college courses while in high school.

    The program has become so popular, the district recently added a Mandarin Chinese dual language program at Jing Mei Elementary in Bellevue.

    Heidi Lamar, English Language Learners Curriculum Supervisor for the Bellevue School District, said administrators and parents have seen first-hand the results of bilingual learning: better test scores, cognitive aptitude, and high confidence in later years.

    Please read more here.

  • Sydney, Australia suburb gets Mandarin immersion school

    Screen Shot 2015-04-02 at 4.12.51 PMInternational Chinese School, Chatswood, celebrates official opening with registrations to 2020
    CARYN METCALFE NORTH SHORE TIMES APRIL 01, 2015 3:00PM SHARE

    WITH registrations all the way to 2020, the establishment of the International Chinese School in Chatswood has been a great ­success.

    The school was officially opened recently with a thanksgiving service at St Paul’s Anglican Church.

    Primary co-ordinator Wendy Yu said the school’s 10 enrolled students, all in kindergarten, sang bilingually at the service.

    Please read more here.

    School site is here.

  • Los Angeles neighborhood doesn’t want Mandarin immersion school

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    Westside group outraged over proposed immersion school

    Posted on March 31, 2015 2:12 pm by 

    Steve Zimmer

    A group of Mar Vista community members and parents is mounting a protest againt LA Unified school board member Steve Zimmer over his support for a Mandarin immersion elementary school slated to be built in their Westside neighborhood.

    The $30 million school, currently dubbed the Mandarin and English Dual-Language Immersion Elementary School project, was approved by the LA Unified school board in April 2014 with Zimmer’s support, and an environmental impact report (EIR) on the project entered the public comment phase on March 26.

    The school would be located in Zimmer’s District 4 on a few acres of open green space that now exists at Mark Twain Middle School. It would would have 15 classrooms and move students currently from nearby Broadway Elementary School’s Mandarin and English Dual- Language Immersion Program to the new site. The district says that Broadway no longer has space to allow the program to grow.

    Please read more here.

  • Who says you have to be in a big city to win Mandarin awards? Not Naselle!

    Naselle students win in Washington state Chinese language competition

    By NICK NIKKILA

    Observer correspondent

    Published:March 31, 2015 1:02PM

    NASELLE — Seven students from the Mandarin Immersion Program at the Naselle-Grays River School District participated in the Fifth Annual Washington State Chinese Language and Talent Competition, with all seven receiving awards.

    The competition, held on Sunday, March 22, at the Chief Sealth International High School in Seattle, was divided into various individual and group performances among different levels of Chinese-as-a-second-language students. Students in grades K-2 had the opportunity to compete in: Team Poetry Recitation, Individual Poetry Recitation, Individual or Team Talent Show, Individual or Team Chinese Singing, Individual or Team Chinese Language Arts, Drawing, and Chinese Chess.

    When the competition ended and awards were posted, the names of Naselle students Anderson, Lanz, Lebovitz, Lindstrom, Popkin, Tichenor and Weston stood out in stark contrast to those of Qiang, Huang, Han, Zhu and others of more decidedly Chinese ancestry. The team consisting of William Anderson, Kinsley Lanz, Alia Lebovitz, Jacob Lindstrom, Hannelie Popkin, Dash Tichenor and Aaliyah Weston won the second place award in group singing.

    Please read more here.

  • Union City, Oregon to get Mandarin immersion school

    UNION, Ore. (AP) — The Union Hotel, which opened in 1921, is a local icon, owning the distinction of being one of the oldest hotels in Eastern Oregon.

    Soon the hotel will own another distinction. The building will be the site of one of the few bilingual elementary schools in Oregon.

    Charlie Morden and partner Ruth Rush, owners and operators of the Union Hotel, plan to open a Chinese language immersion school at the Union Hotel as early as September 2016. Children will be taught in both Mandarin Chinese and English on the expansive and now vacant third floor of the Union Hotel plus other portions of the building.

    “Math, for example, will be taught in Chinese one day and English the next,” Morden said.

    Please read more here.

  • Utah bets big on foreign language learning, but not everyone is on board

    Utah bets big on foreign language learning, but not everyone is on board

    March 18, 2015 · 3:45 PM EDT

    Reporter Nina Porzucki (follow) 

    A second-grader leads her class in a Chinese exercise at Santa Clara Elementary School in southern Utah.

    Credit: Nina Porzucki

    Several years ago, Utah decided to start teaching foreign languages in public schools — beginning in the first grade.

    Listen to the Story.

    Utah probably isn’t the first place you’d think would be at the forefront of language education in the United States. When it comes to per-student spending in public schools, Utah comes in dead last among all 50 states. What’s more, Utah passed an “English Only” law 15 years ago, declaring English to be the state’s sole official language.

    So what accounts for this language push? One man: Republican State Senator Howard Stephenson.

    Stephenson has served in the Utah legislature for more than 22 years. He calls himself a “government watchdog” and idolizes Ronald Reagan. He’s even got a page dedicated to the past president on his website. Safe to say, the senator is wary of the government messing in his business.

    But during a 2008 trip to China, where the government messes in everyone’s business, Stephenson had what he describes as an “epiphany.” He met many Chinese students who spoke with him in fluent English. They were bright, eager and articulate.

    “On the plane ride home, I was worried about America’s future,” Stephenson says. “I was excited for the Chinese and their rising nation, but I wondered what could I do as a policymaker to assist in helping the United States connect to these rising nations?”

    Stephenson promptly introduced a bill to fund the teaching of critical languages, like Mandarin, in Utah’s public schools.

    Please read and listen to more here.

  • How bilingualism affects children’s beliefs 

    A Concordia study shows that kids exposed to two languages have different expectations than those who are monolingual

    Posted on January 13, 2015
    |
    By: Cléa Desjardins
    Early second-language education could promote acceptance of social and physical diversityEarly second-language education could promote acceptance of social and physical diversity. | Photo by Concordia University

    Most young children are essentialists: They believe that human and animal characteristics are innate. That kind of reasoning can lead them to think that traits like native language and clothing preference are intrinsic rather than acquired.

    But a new study from Concordia suggests that certain bilingual kids are more likely to understand that it’s what one learns, rather than what one is born with, that makes up a person’s psychological attributes.

    The study, forthcoming in Developmental Science, suggests that bilingualism in the preschool years can alter children’s beliefs about the world around them. Contrary to their unilingual peers, many kids who have been exposed to a second language after age three believe that an individual’s traits arise from experience.

    For the study, psychology professor Krista Byers-Heinlein and her co-author, Concordia undergrad Bianca Garcia, tested a total of 48 monolingual, simultaneous bilingual (learned two languages at once) and sequential bilingual (learned one language and then another) five- and six-year-olds.

    Please read more here.