A Family’s Guide to Chinese Programs
Many recent studies have shown the benefits of being bilingual. Parents see the advantage of being bilingual and want to introduce Chinese to their children at a young age. In addition, there might be a plan in the parent’s mind to send kids to a Chinese program when they are a little older.
What are the options available for you and your child? Let’s look at the Chinese program in the schools first.
Chinese Program at School: World Language and FLES
The program hours vary. It is usually two to five times a week and each class is approximately thirty minutes to forty-five minutes. Some schools use the Chinese language and culture exploration approach. Some schools adopt the content-based style. When the children have daily Chinese class the consistency is an advantage for the target language input.
For home: Kids have assignments from their Chinese program and they include a combination of language, culture, and activity-based works.
Chinese Immersion Public and Charter Schools
The immersion program has different models. In Utah, the immersion schools use a 50/50 model. That means the elementary school students have classes in Chinese, the target language, for half of the day. And, the remaining half of the day, classes are in English. Another model for the immersion schools is to start the program with 80% to 100% classes in Chinese. And the target language goes down to 50/50 when children enter the 3rd or 4th grade. An example of the latter is the Union County Public Schools in North Carolina.
The immersion school family community is tight as the majority of the parents don’t speak the language and have no Chinese heritage background. Working together is the goal to help their children grow in the target language, culture, and academic program.
For home: Children have homework in Chinese and English depending on her grade level. Parents need resources from teachers and schools to support their children. The more challenging period is usually the beginning of the program. However, young children are open to new languages and the immersion school experience provides an invaluable learning opportunity for your young child.
Weekend Chinese School
This is a weekly program that usually meets two to three hours in a school on the weekend. They are organized by volunteer parents and educators. Most of the parents speak Chinese, have some Chinese culture and language background, or Chinese heritage background. This type of Chinese schools often has Chinse cultural activities classes in addition to the language program. The admission age is usually the same as the public school.
You can see the Chinse system school model at the Confucius Institute and Hope Chinese School.
These schools offer reading and writing in simplified Chinese and pinyin.
There is also the Taiwan system school model and you can see it at New York Chinese School, Irvin Chinese School, and many communities and non-profit Chinese schools organized by educators and Tzu Chi in many states in the U.S.
These schools offer reading and writing in traditional Chinese and Zhuyin. In recent years, some schools also offer simplified Chinese and Pinyin option.
For home: Students usually have workbooks that go with the textbook. Children will have homework and projects to work on during the week to reinforce the learning.
One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.
– Frank Smith
Are any of the Chinese programs mentioned here available in your school district or neighborhood? Are you considering one of the options? We will look at what you can do at home if these programs are not an option at this time in my next post.
Photo by Ben White
A Family’s Guide to Chinese Programs | Miss Panda Chinese