Published Sunday, July 19, 2009 12:07 AM
BISD building Mandarin Chinese program
By JANET PHELPS
janet.phelps@theeagle.com
Mandarin Chinese is more difficult to learn than other languages, according to experts. Each syllable has five tones, and written Mandarin includes characters, along with pronunciations.
Still, half of the Bryan school district parents who were polled said they'd like their children to learn it.
Less than a year after asking for the dual language Chinese immersion program, Bryan school officials are taking the first step toward creating it.
Trustees recently approved adding the Mandarin Chinese class for sixth- and seventh-graders at a gifted and talented academy at Jane Long Middle School. The district staff said the class would equip students to work in an increasingly global economy.
"The world is recognizing that in our children's futures, they will need to be fluent in Mandarin Chinese in order to conduct business in person and online with other Chinese speakers. It is our duty as educators to begin preparing our students for the situations their future holds," Deputy Superintendent Frances McArthur said.
The class will be offered this fall at no additional expense to the district, and staff members are waiting in anticipation to find out if they received a $1.4 million federal grant to expand the program.
"We're starting out small. The Mandarin Chinese class is going to be offered this fall, and we're not going to spend local dollars on creating a big, huge, districtwide program unless we get funded," McArthur said.
The district staff formed a committee two years ago to research the feasibility of adding Chinese as a foreign language option for students.
"In order to make sure those kids were ready, we needed to start preparing them now," McArthur said. "However, we weren't going to spend any district funds. Because of budget constraints, we wanted to be very frugal."
In December, 800 parents with students in kindergarten through eighth grade were surveyed about the class. Of those who responded, McArthur said, more than half expressed interest in the class.
The class this fall will be offered at Jane Long's Inquire Academy to sixth- and seventh-graders. Officials applied to expand the International Baccalaureate diploma program to the school.
The IB program, a special curriculum similar to Advanced Placement, requires students to be fluent in Chinese or another foreign language. IB already is available at Bryan High School.
Ernie Bonanza, who is from the Philippines and is fluent in English, Spanish and Mandarin, will teach the class next year at Inquire. McArthur said Bonanza, who will teach English as a Second Language at Jane Long, is an "amazing, amazing" bilingual teacher who has been teaching at Anson Jones Elementary.
The class likely will be co-taught this fall by a Chinese teacher paid for through Texas A&M University's Conscious Institute.
McArthur said she hoped Bryan would host the first elementary Mandarin Chinese partial-immersion program in Central Texas, meaning that more than half of a day's instruction is in Chinese.
Bryan will be the only school in Brazos County to offer Chinese this fall, although the state regional education office offers online classes in Chinese.
"We looked at that very carefully, but we really wanted the students to have interactions with a teacher," McArthur said.
The 100-page $1.4 million grant sought from the U.S. Department of Education would finance five years of the class and would extend Chinese language classes to Bryan High School, Jane Long Middle School and Johnson and Henderson elementaries.
The money would be used to create a partial-immersion program at Johnson and to send some students on field trips to China.
If the district doesn't get the grant, McArthur said, it will apply again.
"There's a lot of money out there. The Department of Defense is very interested in preparing our kids for languages that are critical to the U.S. national security so there's a lot of federal dollars geared toward that."
The grant requires Bryan to be a model to other districts. The district's Spanish-English Dual Language Program has been used in a similar way by other districts across the state.
Students in that program, which is in its eighth year, started in kindergarten and score better than their peers across the district on tests. The program consistently has a waiting list, officials said.
McArthur hopes that eventually, if money is available, the Chinese classes, like the Spanish-English program, will be open to all students.
"I want our [Bryan Independent School District] students to have the skill sets to compete in a very different world from the one I grew up in," she said.
Comments
[comment]
11 comment(s) found!
Posted by:
On:
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 8:55 PM
Comment Title:
This a really humorous. Now before you call me a racist, just think about this for a minute. White's can barely speak Spanish or Tex-Mex, Mexican's can barely speak English, very few blacks speak Spanish, Tex-Mex, and now the kids are going to learn Chinese. How do you say "no mo crap por favor" in Chinese?
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Posted by:
theDoctor On:
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 11:05 AM
Comment Title: this may
Be a good idea down the road but right now the district does need to ensure that all schools are on task and meeting state requirements. You see I stated "all schools" not "all students." There is a big difference.
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Posted by:
Mickey Stratton On:
Monday, July 20, 2009 12:01 PM
Comment Title: Why Not
To: Are you Kidding? You made the comment “When the district gets great TAKS score across the board then worry about teaching Chinese” Your mind set is one of the problems with education today. Basically you are saying “When all students can do the minimum we can then move on to higher standards.” Many of our children are consistently getting “Commended” on all of their TAKS scores without being challenged at all. If we believe in individuality and different levels of abilities we should try to have different programs to challenge all of our students. The Spanish Dual Language program has shown what we can do for students , rich and poor, when their parents and the district work together. If the district can offer my children the option of taking Mandarin while not costing us any more tax dollars and/or taking from other programs, I say the more power to them.
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Posted by:
Concerned Taxpayer On:
Monday, July 20, 2009 11:36 AM
Comment Title: Huh??
OK. Let me get this straight. We are graduating students now who cannot read, write or spell English...but us, the taxpayers, are now going to fund these students to learn Mandarin Chinese? Is this because this country is soon to be owned by China? Afterall, they are the ones who are buying all our debt. Personally, I think we have more than enough concerns in graduating students who are literate in our country's language - which last I heard SHOULD be English since this is the USA. I have nothing against anyone being bilingual, or even better multilingual. BUT, shouldn't more emphasis be placed on just plain old literacy before bringing more into the mix?
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Posted by:
On:
Monday, July 20, 2009 10:11 AM
Comment Title: Disappointed
Why must everyone choose to see the negatives of creating the Mandarin Chinese program? Do some investigation into the fact that children who are multi-lingual early in life have higher rates of educational success than children who learn only one language. This program could bring success to many children in the district, but everything takes time. Its pessimistic and negative people who hold back so many including themselves because they are not able to see the positive possibilities of trying something new. You all need to act like the educated people you pretend to be and do some research before spouting such negativity about a program you know nothing about.
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Posted by:
On:
Monday, July 20, 2009 9:19 AM
Comment Title:
I appreciate the fact that BISD wants its students to have a future other than as a farm implement repairman, but I have to agree with the other posters that their are existing challenges that need to be mastered first. This is an example of putting the cart before the horse... so far before that you can't see the horse from where the cart sits! Expend this effort in closing the performance gap rather than creating a program whose purpose is to make the district look good.
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Posted by:
On:
Sunday, July 19, 2009 4:11 PM
Comment Title: I love it!
All I have to say on the matter is that I love the comment titled "Chinese" but my favorite is "ARE YOU KIDDING!!!! Sorry but they say it all.
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Posted by:
Yellow Kid On:
Sunday, July 19, 2009 3:20 PM
Comment Title: Chinese
Our little nimrods can barely speak and write English. All you have to do is read some of the posted comments and see that this isn't going to work. Let them learn English first.
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Posted by:
On:
Sunday, July 19, 2009 9:53 AM
Comment Title:
If this truly cost the taxpayers no money then I'm fine with it. However, what I would like to see is bilingual education in the public schools reduced to just one year of total immersion. We spend way too much money on bilingual education now and accommodate non-English speakers much longer than we should. I was in high school when the Vietnamese boat people arrived. Their children learned English very quickly and outperformed most Americans in other subjects while still learning the language. Back then we didn't accommodate non-English speakers. They were forced to learn English quickly and they were much better off for it. They were also truly thankful for the opportunity to immigrate here (legally), were motivated to succeed, and didn't have every handout under the sun available to them. I wish our country and schools would return to that approach.
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Posted by:
On:
Sunday, July 19, 2009 9:36 AM
Comment Title:
From the article: "McArthur said she hoped Bryan would host the first elementary Mandarin Chinese partial-immersion program in Central Texas, meaning that more than half of a day's instruction is in Chinese." I'm speechless. From where, pray, will all of these bilingual teachers come? Will our students be treated to a native Chinese speaker who cannot speak intelligible English? (Happens at A&M all the time. I could go on and on with questions. But what would be the point? After all, federal dollars are at stake.
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Posted by:
On:
Sunday, July 19, 2009 2:02 AM
Comment Title: ARE YOU KIDDING !!!!!
This takes the cake. BISD wants to teach Chinese to equip their students to compete in a global economy. Hey, how about equipping their students to compete period. You have a district that has terrible TAKS scores and we are worried about teaching Chinese. Instead of serving the few, how about taking care of all of the students? When the district gets great TAKS score across the board then worry about teaching Chinese. Just because it is a federal grant does not mean we have to jump on the bandwagon. How about the district becoming a model program for educating all of our children instead of an elite few? Who is coming up with these hair-brained ideas at central office? This has Cargill or one of his goofy cronies written all over it. Cargill leave and take your goofy cronies with you.
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