Chinese Language Immersion in our school district

[Eddie]

I have heard that there are tradeoffs early on in the sense that learning half of the day in a foreign language causes the language immersion kids to fall behind in other core areas (math, writing, etc.) for a few years or however long. The folks I talked to about it were confident that they catch back up after that, though.

We were talking about this just a day or two ago.

She seemed to think that her son fell behind the first month or so, but that they aren't all that far behind any longer. She thinks the trade off was well worth it as her son has increased self-esteem and pays a LOT better attention. He has to in order to know what is going on.

I imagine the teacher has got to be exhausted at the end of the day.

[SCcoug]

It reminds me of an article I read a few months ago about native Chinese teachers sent her to teach Mandarin as part of a Chinese effort to teach the world Mandarin.

China wants to teach the world its language and culture, and Ms. Zheng is one of about 325 guest teachers who have volunteered to work for up to three years in American schools, with their salaries subsidized by the Chinese government. A parallel effort has sent about 2,000 American school administrators to visit China at Beijing’s expense.

I thought the article was interesting especially in light of the recent news about the relative rankings of Chinese students and US students. Here are some quotes.

“In China,” she said after class, “if you teach the students and they don’t get it, that’s their problem. Here if they don’t get it, you teach it again.”

“My life in high school was torture, just studying, nothing else,” said Ms. Zheng (pronounced djung). “Here students lead more interesting lives,” partly because they are more involved in athletics, choir and other activities.

“They party, they drink, they date,” she added. “In China, we study and study and study.”

Ms. Zheng has described to her classes the high-pressure schools she attended in the city of Pingdingshan, where students study six days a week from 8 a.m. through a mandatory evening study hall ending at 10 p.m.