US schools embrace 'immersion' Chinese lessons
Susan Wang couldn't speak English when she arrived in California from
Taiwan, aged 16.
Now 49, she heads a school offering US children a similar experience,
plunging them into a Chinese world.
And her establishment is part of a rapid expansion of "immersion"
Mandarin language programs in the United States, helped notably by
Beijing providing low-cost native-speaker teachers to cash-strapped US
schools.
Pupils as young as five at her Broadway Elementary School in Venice,
west of Los Angeles, take classes entirely in Chinese, in a project so
successful that it is having to move to a new campus.
"The single most exciting thing has to be watching the kids learn,
and how they learn, and how fast they pick up another language, it's
just amazing," she told AFP, in a pause from her busy day at the local
school.
"I didn't speak English when I came, so when it comes to dual
language and language learning ... it's something close to my heart,"
she added.
Chinese immersion programs are not new in American schools. But
China's rapidly expanding world role has fueled growing demand for
Mandarin language skills, mirroring Washington's diplomatic pivot across
the Pacific.
Mandarin teaching has expanded nationwide over the last decade, in
contrast to other foreign languages which have steadily decreased,
according to data compiled by the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL).
"Mandarin is really taking off ... Chinese was one of the few
languages that increased, most other language offerings decreased,
including French, German, and Japanese," Nancy Rhodes of the Washington
DC-based CAL told AFP.
Beijing's education ministry is also helping, by sending
native-speaker teachers effectively for free to work in US schools.
"Schools are of course experiencing huge budget cuts, so the offer of
free or low cost native-speaker teachers from China to teach language
classes really looks good," said Rhodes.
California has been in the forefront, both geographically and
historically, ever since huge numbers of Chinese workers helped build
the US railroad system. San Francisco and LA have the biggest Chinese
communities after New York.
Traditionally families with one or both parents from Chinese
backgrounds have put children into Mandarin-language schools to bolster
their cultural "heritage," or ability to communicate with grandparents
back home.
But increasingly parents cite economic and career-prospect reasons
for having their offspring able to speak Chinese.
"I wanted them to have the opportunity to be able to leave the US if
they wished to go and seek employment somewhere else," said Julie Wang,
an Australian who came to the United States when she was 25.
"I did that myself ... I came out here. I think it's a great
opportunity for them to experience different cultures, different ways of
life, not just the one that they grew up in," she added.
AFP
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