American Students Learn Their ABCs and Chinese

From http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/19/eveningnews/main7263167.shtml

American Students Learn Their ABC's and Chinese
Only 9% of Americans Speak a Foreign Language - Compared to 44 Percent of Europeans

(CBS) China's president said Wednesday young people are the future of the relationship between his country and the U.S. The problem is, he said it in Mandarin - a language most Americans don't understand.

CBS News correspondent Terry McCarthy reports there are some American children who don't have to wait for the translation.

Americans generally assume everyone speaks English. Often, they exceed our expectations. Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin surprised Mike Wallace in 2000 by reciting the Gettysburg Address in English.

Even the French President speaks English - kind of.

But Americans do not generally share such multilingual talents. Only nine percent of Americans speak a foreign language, compared to 44 percent of Europeans - something President Obama is painfully aware of.

"We need to learn foreign languages," Mr. Obama said at a campaign rally in 2008. "I don't speak a foreign language - it's embarrassing."

Instead of struggling with foreign grammar, Americans would rather struggle with headphones to hear the translation.

But not in City Terrace public school in east Los Angeles - where 90 students have been learning Chinese since kindergarten. Like his classmates, third-grader Nelson Enriquez even has his own Chinese name.

"At five years old they are like little sponges," Principal Elaine Fujiu said.

Nelson's family speaks Spanish at home, so he is trilingual - which the
8-year-old is already planning to exploit. "I might get a better job - and a raise too."

The students have been learning Chinese for four years and they are pretty good - but it's an unusual school. Across the country only 50,000 Americans are learning Chinese. In China, by contrast, there are 200 million students learning English.

The numbers are increasing. A decade ago about 300 schools in the U.S. taught Chinese. Now it's close to 1,600 - driven by interest in China's $6 trillion economy, now the second biggest in the world.

At City Terrace the Chinese immersion program is so popular they have a waiting list.

"Learning Chinese as a second language will help their children to get a better job later on," said third-grade teacher Theresa Kao.

Two languages, two cultures - and no one at a loss for words.

WSJ: Chinese On the Menu For Students

from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704082104575516082963460938.html

Spurred by separate pushes by the U.S. and Chinese governments, more schools in Greater New York have begun offering—even requiring—the study of Mandarin at the elementary level.


Starting this month, Manhattan's New Explorations Into Science, Technology and Math, or NEST+m, replaced Spanish with Mandarin for kindergarten through fifth grades. Some city elementary schools, such as PS 310 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, have launched Chinese bilingual programs aimed at native Chinese speakers. Others, such as as PS 20 on the Lower East Side, have opted for dual-language programs, where half of the class is fluent in English and the other half is fluent in Mandarin. The programs this year add to about 25 bilingual and dual-language ones that already existed in the city, according to Matthew Mittenthal, city Department of Education spokesman.

"Mandarin is a language that has symbols that are very different than our written language," said Olga Livanis, the principal of NEST+m, a K-12 gifted-and-talented school on the Lower East Side. "The more difficult, the earlier a child needs to learn it."

The rise in Mandarin comes amid increased federal funding for programs that teach it and from school administrators' recognition of China's growing influence in the global economy. China is also cultivating the study of Mandarin abroad, sponsoring teachers, materials and visits to China.

As of the end of 2008 school year, about 50 public and two dozen private schools in New York City had Chinese classes, according to Robin Harvey, coordinator of a Chinese-language teachers program at New York University. Since then, the number has increased by 5% to 10%, she said.

Several new programs certifying teachers in instruction of Chinese as a second language are launching around the city. NYU, for example, had more than 42 graduates from its master's program over the past three years, said Ms. Harvey. "Most of our teachers once they graduate find work in the New York metropolitan area," she said.

Chinese is one of of the languages considered to be critical to the U.S. national security by the U.S. Department of Education, which helps schools secure funding if they agree to teach the languages.

Last year, New Rochelle began offering Mandarin in its middle and high schools, and this year the language is offered to some kindergarteners and fourth-graders. Being aware that "we could possibly get support to introduce" Mandarin played a role in starting the language up throughout the school system, said Richard E. Organisciak, the Westchester County district's superintendent. New Rochelle received about $1.5 million in federal grants, and the approval for the money came within weeks of application, said Mr. Organisciak.

Support from China is also helping Chinese instruction grow around the country. U.S. schools are able to get a guest teacher for two years sponsored by the Chinese government via a program with the College Board.

In New York State, only two schools have guest teachers, whose stipends and international travel is sponsored by the Chinese government, while housing and administrative fees are taken on by school districts. Both New York guest teachers starting this school year at Medgar Evers College Preparatory school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and the Brewster School District, about 50 miles north of the city. In Connecticut, nine guest-teachers are working, all having started in 2009 or this year, according to the College Board. New Jersey has two guest teachers, who also arrived in the past year or so.

But Rocco Tomazic, superintendent of Linden, N.J., school district, said that he chose to decline and find permanent teachers. NEST also found a teacher on its own and is paying for the teacher out of its own budget.

Several schools in Greater New York are part of a new grant program called the Confucius Classroom, sponsored by the Chinese government through the New York-based Asia Society, which selects programs that could serve as models for Chinese-language instruction. These classrooms are matched with partner schools in China for joint projects and exchanges and are provided with teacher development.

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Julie Platner for The Wall Street Journal

Students work on pronunciation and geography of cities in China by coloring in their own maps.
.Offering Chinese was a leap of faith, said Linden's Mr. Tomazic, "in a working-class town that has no significant number of Chinese." But a recent "China night" filled a school auditorium for students singing in Mandarin, he said. Now about 400 elementary-school children in the Linden school district are learning Mandarin.

For James Lee, principal of PS 20, a public school on the Lower East Side, introducing a dual-language program this year in two kindergarten classes was a matter of satisfying the needs of the growing number of children learning English in the district the school serves, he said. About 47 children, mixed English and Mandarin speakers, are enrolled this year, studying a full-day in Mandarin, followed by a day in English.

PS 20 received applications from English-speaking students in upper Manhattan and Brooklyn, said Mr. Lee. "The interest is huge," he said. Preference was given to children in District 1.

Two weeks into the program, things are going well, said Mr. Lee. He called the program, "a fairly challenging setting." "To be taught in a language that you only comprehend in small amounts, that's a lot to ask of a five year old."

Write to Yuliya Chernova at yuliya.chernova@dowjones.com

NBC Today Show Hosts Chinese Language Learning Segment

NBC's Today Show sponsored a segment on the importance of learning Mandarin Chinese.

According to Daniella Montalto, NYU's Institute of Learning and Achievement, learning a language at a very young age can help improve children's reading, writing, math and IQ scores.

Watch it here: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39154226/vp/39418545#39418545

NY Times: Foreign Languages Fade in Class - Except Chinese

From http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/education/21chinese.html?emc=eta1


January 21, 2010
Foreign Languages Fade in Class — Except Chinese
By SAM DILLON
WASHINGTON — Thousands of public schools stopped teaching foreign languages in the last decade, according to a government-financed survey — dismal news for a nation that needs more linguists to conduct its global business and diplomacy.

But another contrary trend has educators and policy makers abuzz: a rush by schools in all parts of America to offer instruction in Chinese.

Some schools are paying for Chinese classes on their own, but hundreds are getting some help. The Chinese government is sending teachers from China to schools all over the world — and paying part of their salaries.

At a time of tight budgets, many American schools are finding that offer too good to refuse.

In Massillon, Ohio, south of Cleveland, Jackson High School started its Chinese program in the fall of 2007 with 20 students and now has 80, said Parthena Draggett, who directs Jackson’s world languages department.

“We were able to get a free Chinese teacher,” she said. “I’d like to start a Spanish program for elementary children, but we can’t get a free Spanish teacher.”

(Jackson’s Chinese teacher is not free; the Chinese government pays part of his compensation, with the district paying the rest.)

No one keeps an exact count, but rough calculations based on the government’s survey suggest that perhaps 1,600 American public and private schools are teaching Chinese, up from 300 or so a decade ago. And the numbers are growing exponentially.

Among America’s approximately 27,500 middle and high schools offering at least one foreign language, the proportion offering Chinese rose to 4 percent, from 1 percent, from 1997 to 2008, according to the survey, which was done by the Center for Applied Linguistics, a research group in Washington, and paid for by the federal Education Department.

“It’s really changing the language education landscape of this country,” said Nancy C. Rhodes, a director at the center and co-author of the survey.

Other indicators point to the same trend. The number of students taking the Advanced Placement test in Chinese, introduced in 2007, has grown so fast that it is likely to pass German this year as the third most-tested A.P. language, after Spanish and French, said Trevor Packer, a vice president at the College Board.

“We’ve all been surprised that in such a short time Chinese would grow to surpass A.P. German,” Mr. Packer said.

A decade ago, most of the schools with Chinese programs were on the East and West Coasts. But in recent years, many schools have started Chinese programs in heartland states, including Ohio and Illinois in the Midwest, Texas and Georgia in the South, and Colorado and Utah in the Rocky Mountain West.

“The mushrooming of interest we’re seeing now is not in the heritage communities, but in places that don’t have significant Chinese populations,” said Chris Livaccari, an associate director at the Asia Society.

America has had the study of a foreign language grow before, only to see the bubble burst. Many schools began teaching Japanese in the 1980s, after Japan emerged as an economic rival. But thousands have dropped the language, the survey found.

Japanese is not the only language that has declined. Thousands of schools that offered French, German or Russian have stopped teaching those languages, too, the survey found.

To prepare the survey, the Center for Applied Linguistics sent a questionnaire to 5,000 American schools, and followed up with phone calls to 3,200 schools, getting a 76 percent response rate.

The results, released last year, confirmed that Spanish was taught almost universally. The survey found that 88 percent of elementary schools and 93 percent of middle and high schools with language programs offered Spanish in 2008.

The overall decline in language instruction was mostly due to its abrupt decline in public elementary and middle schools; the number of private schools and public high schools offering at least one language remained stable from 1997 to 2008.

The survey said that a third of schools reported that the federal No Child Left Behind law, which since 2001 has required public schools to test students in math and English, had drawn resources from foreign languages.

Experts said several factors were fueling the surge in Chinese. Parents, students and educators recognize China’s emergence as an important country and believe that fluency in its language can open opportunities.

Also stoking the interest has been a joint program by the College Board and Hanban, a language council affiliated with the Chinese Education Ministry, that since 2006 has sent hundreds of American school superintendents and other educators to visit schools in China, with travel costs subsidized by Hanban. Many have started Chinese programs upon their return.

Since 2006, Hanban and the College Board have also sent more than 325 volunteer Chinese “guest teachers” to work in American schools with fledgling programs and paying $13,000 to subsidize each teacher’s salary for a year. Teachers can then renew for up to three more years.

The State Department has paid for a smaller program to bring Chinese teachers to schools here, with each staying for a year.

In the first two years of its Chinese program, the Jackson District in Ohio said it had provided its guest teacher housing, a car and gasoline, health insurance and other support worth about $26,000. This year, the district is paying a more experienced Chinese guest teacher $49,910 in salary and other support, in addition to the $13,000 in travel expenses he receives from Hanban, bringing his compensation into rough parity with Ohio teachers.

Ms. Draggett visited China recently with a Hanban-financed delegation of 400 American educators from 39 states, and she came back energized about Jackson’s Chinese program, she said.

“Chinese is really taking root,” she said. Starting this fall, Jackson High will begin phasing out its German program, she said.

Founders of the Yu Ying charter school in Washington, where all classes for 200 students in prekindergarten through second grade are taught in Chinese and English on alternate days, did not start with a guest teacher when it opened in the fall of 2008.

“That’s great for many schools, but we want our teachers to stay,” said Mary Shaffner, the school’s executive director.

Instead, Yu Ying recruited five native Chinese speakers living in the United States by advertising on the Internet. One is Wang Jue, who immigrated to the United States in 2001 and graduated from the University of Maryland.

After just four months, her prekindergarten students can already say phrases like “I want lunch” and “I’m angry” in Chinese, Ms. Wang said.

Five Things the U.S. Can Learn From China

From the November 23, 2009 issue of Time Magazine and Time.com.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1938671,00.html

"One day this summer, Sean Maloney, an executive vice president at Intel, was bouncing from one appointment to another in northeastern China, speeding along in a van traversing newly built highways.

He gazed out at one of the world's biggest construction projects: a network of high-speed train lines — covering 10,000 miles (16,000 km) nationwide — that China is building. As far as the eye could see, there sat vast concrete support struts, one after another, exactly 246 ft. (75 m) apart. Each was full of steel cables and weighed about 800 tons.

"We used to build stuff too," Maloney mused, unprompted. "But now it's NIMBY [not in my backyard] every time you try to do something. Here,'' he joked, "it's more like IMBY. There's stuff happening here, everywhere and always."

For full text and photos: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1938671,00.html

Time Magazine: Immersion Mandarin

From November 23, 2009 issue of Time; Yinghua Academy creates immersion experience.

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1938815,00.html