Mandarin Chinese for young children does not show on No Child left Behind reports

Are we leaving any students behind?
Educators say federal mandates needs revisions

By Jessica Jordan
jjordan@gainesvilletimes.com

POSTED Sept. 7, 2008 12:30 a.m.

Excerpt reads:

Teachers' creativity and gifted students left behind?
May (principal of Chestnut Mountain Elementary) also said the federal mandate has changed the way schools operate in recent years. She said while teachers are taking a more professional instructional approach under the law, it's also stifling their creative freedom in the classroom in favor of high-stakes testing.

"There used to be more of a focus on the art of teaching, now it's more of a focus on the science of teaching," she said.

While Hall County educators said the school system focuses on the whole student, including character development and academic rigor, as well as on a student passing the CRCT or the Georgia High School Graduation Test, Schofield said there's still a group of students nationwide who aren't getting the attention they deserve in the classroom: "the run of the mill" and gifted students.

"I think it's going to be a huge mistake in all kinds of issues, the most fundamental being the very competitiveness of the United States as a nation," Schofield said. "The children that sit in our classrooms could cure cancer ... and are the very children that aren't getting very much attention."

Schofield said he's concerned No Child Left Behind's emphasis on test scores has encouraged school systems nationwide to forsake class time in foreign language, communication skills and technology, all skills he considers vital for students to compete in the 21st century workplace.

"We can offer Mandarin Chinese ... for little children. It won't show up on a No Child Left Behind report ... and quite honestly, that's the reason why a lot of districts have abandoned and not gone down those roads," Schofield said.

Denver public schools plan for Mandarin Chinese

At two schools, kids as young as prekindergarten students dive into learning Chinese. Parents say they are on track for global success. Global Village and Denver International have had a positive experience introducing Mandarin Chinese.

Denver public schools plan for immersion Chinese in a district facility in the Park Hill area. Ohio and Oregonhave K-16 Chinese programs.

We cannot have global citizens that are mono-lingual says language consultant Myriam Wet from Washington D.C.

Ohio take Mandarin Chinese for children seriously developing with FLAP

... (the U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language Assistance Program goals and outcomes as well as Professional Development Modules

Project Goals

The goals for our (Ohio) K-4 Content-Enriched Mandarin Curriculum Project are:

To develop an age-appropriate Chinese language program that reinforces content and skills from the regular curriculum and spirals vocabulary, sentence patterns and cultural content so that all children can be successful learning Chinese;
To build the capacity of teachers to use the curriculum and to adapt it for their particular teaching settings through Web-based professional development modules;
To pilot the curriculum in 10 Ohio sites to garner feedback to revise the curriculum for wider distribution; and
To establish a network of elementary Chinese language teachers to support professional growth and the exchange of ideas.

Some Bay County children learning 3 languages to prepare for their global future

For 8 year old students at Panama City Renaissance School, math class in Mandarin Chinese is as easy as it comes.

“It’s a different language, very different from english and sometimes I can sneak a word or two in that my parents don’t understand,” says Amelia Talkington.

Administrator of the school, Juliann Talkington, says studying for an International MBA with students of many different cultures provoked her interest in providing a different kind of education.

“I think it was a wake up call that we have a lot of competition in the world, and the world is changing especially because of technology,” says Talkington.

She says her work now is in an attempt to level the playing field for all kids. Now five teachers instruct students in Spanish, English and Mandarin.

“Between the ages of a few months and 18 years of age you lose about 30 percent of the language area of your brain so by speaking more languages, you keep more of your brain,” says Talkington.

The school is housed in rented space from an Episcopal Church has grown from 2 students to 23 in four years. One student learned English as a second language after spending several years of her young life in China. But said… It wasn’t tough to adjust.

“There were papers with pictures on them and we had to write what they were,” says Vicky Wu.

Talkington says the students can learn from each other as well because this is a cultural education. Even programs like the Beijing Olypics are heightening interest.

“Seeing that on TV with the Olympics was really fascinating for them they just loved it,” says Talkington.

Talkington says four times as many people in the world speak Chinese than English. She found three qualified teachers fluent in Mandarin right here in Bay County.

Children stuck with English only langauge skills will find themselves less valuable in the job marketplace

Security Language Initiative" to "dramatically increase the number of Americans learning, speaking and teaching critical-need foreign languages. Foreign language skills are essential to engaging foreign governments and peoples, especially in critical world regions, to promote understanding, convey respect for other cultures, and encourage reform. These skills are also fundamental to the economic competitiveness and security interests of the nation."

Sounds like there's something on which Bush and Obama agree: Nothing could be more dangerous for an America already losing its edge in the world than to teach its children to disdain other languages and distrust other cultures, to skip geography, to forget about travel abroad. If the Chinese, the Indians, the Brazilians and the Russians are busy learning English so they can do business with us, doesn't it behoove us to learn their languages, too? (In China, all elementary school students must study English.) At a time when the West is threatened by Arab jihadists, don't we need many more intelligence agents and soldiers who speak Arabic?

While activists alarmed about illegal immigration have spent the last decade supporting "English-only" codes and decrying the loss of cultural touchstones associated with western Europe, the actual harm to the nation lies in our refusal to acknowledge the growing economic competitiveness of other countries. South Koreans aren't shunning English. It's one more weapon in their arsenal as they advance in commerce, engineering and the sciences.

So the next time you hear some smart-mouth pundit acting as though foreign language fluency is a sign of decadence or an unbecoming Frenchy-ness, don't fall for it. That pundit likely has a passport. If he has college-age kids, he has probably worked hard to help them study abroad.

Do as he does, not as he says. Enroll your kids in Spanish or Russian or Mandarin classes.

Nick Jr. extends commitment to the preschool animated television series Ni Hao, Kai-lan.

Ni Hao, Kai-lan in particular, centers itself around a little Asian-American girl named Kai-lan and her everyday adventures through playtime and self-discovery with her many animal friends. Debuting in early February of this year, the preschool animation has provided the Nick Jr. block with an abundance of creative diversity, a welcomed adjustment to the visual and storytelling aesthete that its young viewers so desperately crave.

"Kai-lan has charmed her way into the lives of preschoolers who tune in to experience her vibrant world which is infused with Mandarin language and Chinese culture," Brown Johnson, President of Animation, Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids and Family Group, commented. "Ni Hao, Kai-lan furthers Nick Jr.'s ongoing commitment to developing diverse programming with characters who reflect today's preschoolers."

Many parents are looking for Chinese classes for their children. In response to this increased demand.....

'With the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing only a few months way, many parents are clamoring for a way to learn Chinese or are desperately looking for Chinese classes for their children. This is for good reason. Not only is Mandarin Chinese the most spoken language in the world, China is the most rapidly developing economy in the world. Thus far, the most difficult aspect of learning Chinese is finding someone to teach it. Few schools and universities offer Mandarin Chinese, and when they do offer the classes, they fill to capacity quickly. In response to this increased demand, Petite Ambassadors Language School announced today that the school will be expanding its current offering to include a Chinese program that will reach students of all ages, including adults. The school is the first Private Language Education Program of its kind in North Florida. Chinese classes will begin October 15, 2008 and will be taught by Hsiu-yu (Ann) Yang, M.Ed., and Beijing Native.'
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4PRN/is_2008_May_19/ai_n25435109

see Petite Ambassadors School in Florida
http://www.petiteambassadors.com/

A parent's view of Chinese immersion schools for children

Why do we need a Chinese language immersion school in the Eugene School District?

What country is said to be destined to become the largest English-speaking nation in the world? Hint: It’s the same country that has bought $1 trillion of American debt and boasts a trade surplus of hundreds of billions of dollars with us year after year. Yes, China!

While America confronts record national debt and trade deficits, a too thinly stretched military, a battered middle class and plummeting world prestige, China enjoys an exploding economy, a modernizing military, a burgeoning middle class and growing world prestige.

"[At] no time in the history of Chinese international schools has there been such a dynamic and explosive growth

of international schools as what’s happening here in China right now," Frerking said.Students enrolled in these facilities receive educations equivalent to elite private schools in the United States and Europe in part because they are modeled on predominately British and American curriculums, offering both International Baccalaureate (IB) and Advanced Placement (AP) programs. Students also generally come from affluent families who emphasize the importance of education.

International schools in Asia mostly began as small facilities intended for the children of diplomats or missionaries. However, as economic expansion attracted multinational businesses to Asia, the number of students in international schools rose dramatically. These facilities have now evolved into centers for expatriate communities and are vital tools for attracting foreign direct investment (FDI).

The number of foreign Chinese children adopted by Americans has dropped for the third year in a row ...

..... a consequence of tougher policies in the two countries -- China and Russia -- that over the past decade have supplied the most children to U.S. families.

Figures for the 2007 fiscal year showed that adoptions from abroad have fallen to 19,411, down about 15 percent in just the past two years.

It's a dramatic change. The number of foreign adoptions had more than tripled since the early 1990s, reaching a peak of 22,884 in 2004 before dipping slightly in 2005, then falling to 20,679 in 2006.

"A drop in international adoptions is sad for children," said Thomas Atwood, president of the National Council for Adoption. "National boundaries and national pride shouldn't get in the way of children having families."

Adoptions from China, the No. 1 source country since 2000, fell to 5,453. That's down by 1,040 from last year and well off the peak of 7,906 in 2005. Two main factors lie behind this: an increase in domestic adoptions as China prospers and tighter restrictions on foreign adoptions that give priority to stable married couples between 30 and 50 and exclude single people, the obese and others with financial or health problems.

One consequence, adoption agencies say, is that the waiting time to complete an adoption from China has more than doubled to 24 months or more.