A group of Chinese teens, between the ages of 13-15, is coming to Utah to live with American families this summer. Compass USA is looking for families willing to hose one to two children from July 8-21st.
Hosting is fun and a great way to learn about another culture and language, say Compass USA, which sponsors the exchange. Students will be involved in a school program in the Draper area four days a week from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The rest of the time students will join your family in your regular activities meals.
For more information, contact Wendy Hadden at wendy@hadden3.com
Hope this tickles your funny bone. But it’s a humorous way to edge into a serious topic – bad blood sewn by those who treat immersion programs like an exclusive club.
Those who follow this blog have read about the rift at Lake Forest Elementary, an immersion school in the suburbs of Chicago. In Utah we’ve avoided this level of controversy, but it’s a nice reminder to be good stewards for our program, to be inclusive and to be thankful for the educational opportunities we’ve been given.
Long-time followers of this website will remember ShaoLan Hsueh’s TED talk wherein she explains her pictographic system for remembering Chinese characters.
She was recently profiled by The Wall Street Journal. Here are a few excerpts:
“ShaoLan Hsueh thinks that English-speakers can start learning to read Chinese in less than 10 minutes. …Her book takes [Chinese] characters and overlays simple designs on top of them to help readers make the connections between the symbol and the word. …Some words build on one or more characters put together, so once you master a handful of basic building blocks, she says, learning new characters becomes much easier. Two woman characters together mean “argument,” and three in a row means “adultery.” “It shows gender inequality,” says Ms. Hsueh. Why do two women mean “argument?” In ancient China, “they had three or four generations all underneath the same roof, and the women, they argue,” she explains….
Ms. Hsueh’s book arrives as more U.S. students are learning Chinese. Nancy Rhodes of the Center for Applied Linguistics, a national language research and resource nonprofit, says that the percentage of secondary schools teaching Mandarin has increased from 1% in 1997 to 4% in 2008 (the most recent year available). Meanwhile, the percentage of schools teaching French dropped from 64% to 46% in the same period, especially as schools face budget cuts. The number of enrollments in college Chinese language classes was more than 60,000 in 2009, up from around 34,000 in 2002, according to the Modern Language Association.”
The Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah is proud to present the 2014 Gateway to Learning Educator Workshops. These weeklong summer workshops allow teachers throughout Utah to attend professional development classes taught by distinguished humanities professors and earn graduate university credit, all at a minimal cost. This summer we will offer seven workshops covering a variety of topics (please see link below to brochure for complete information). Registration for the workshops will begin on April 1, 2014 at noon through the Tanner Center’s website: www.thc.utah.edu.
This year’s program includes a workshop titled “Survey of Ancient Chinese Civilization,” which will will offer a broad survey of ancient Chinese civilization by examining texts from philosophy, history, literature, and art. If possible, could you please share this information with Mandarin Dual Language Immersion teachers? Please feel free to contact me with any questions or if you would like any additional information.
English-Mandarin bilingual free school to open next year
The Marco Polo Academy will open at the beginning of the academic year for 52 pupils and will run classes in both English and Mandarin
London’s first bilingual free school opened this September Photo: Alamy
By Josie Gurney-Read
9:25AM GMT 20 Dec 2013
The Marco Polo Academy will open in the north London borough of Barnet in September 2014, catering for 4-11 year-olds under the Government’s Free School initiative.
It’s the first English-Mandarin bilingual free school in the UK and has plans to expand year on year. Two primary schools which teach lessons in Mandarin opened this September, Abacus Primary in Camden and Tiger Primary in Maidstone.
The proposal was initially submitted to the Department for Education by a founding group, who all have an interest in bilingual education, and approval was awarded to the school in May 2013. The primary will be one…
For five consecutive summers CHHS, a private prep school in Tawain, has brought a group of junior high and high school students to Utah to study English, live with host families and experience America.
The school is in need of host families for the summer of 2014.
Utah Mandarin Immersion Parent Council 