WJHS Students Spent Part of Summer in China

Some Wilmette Junior High School students spent a good portion of time earlier this summer in China.

Yiyi Xu, who has taught the Mandarin language at the school since it was introduced to fifth graders three years ago, organized the trip that included stops in four cities in June.

Nine eighth graders, five seventh graders, Xu and a colleague of hers joined 13 parents on the trip, according to the Wilmette Life.

The trip “validated that the Mandarin Chinese language skills they’d worked on could let them connect to people from halfway around the world,” according to the Life article.

“We were not just sightseeing,” said 13-year-old Julia Nagel. “We went to a high school and talked with students, we went to someone’s house and had dinner with them … this was so much more than a trip to Chinatown.”

Xu stressed the value of the trip to the students.

“I’ve taught them for all this time, and I wanted to see, could they function in China? I wanted to give them that opportunity, to learn more about the culture by meeting people,” she said.

more via the Wilmette Life