The Future of Westford Academy Mandarin Classes Analyzed

The first year of Mandarin instruction is coming to a close at , but the future of the program will remain as a work in progress if Monday’s School Committee meeting was any indication.

Westford Academy foreign language curriculum coordinator Amy Moran reported to the Committee that enrollment will remain near approximately 20 students, with the addition of a Mandarin II class on top of the introductory offering.

The beginning of Mandarin in Westford follows moves by neighboring school districts such as Concord-Carlisle and Acton-Boxborough that have been offering instruction in the world's most spoken language for the past decade.

Westford had four separate possible roll outs for the language were proposed in 2009, including a more comprehensive language program such as Spanish, which currently 618 students at Westford Academy in addition to seventh and eighth grade students at Westford’s middle schools.

The low number of students enrolled in the program was a cause of concern for School Committee member David Keele, who hoped that more marketing of the program could be done to increase enrollment in Mandarin classes.

According to information provided during the meeting, studies have shown that it takes approximately four years to build a new language in a school system, and School Committee members such as chairwoman Angela Harkness believed that putting a timeframe on the program would eliminate any possibility of success.

“Mandarin’s a very up and coming thing to do, particularly for business,” said Harkness. “We really need to give it a chance.”

, currently a senior at Westford Academy, was enrolled in the inaugural Mandarin class.

She told the Committee that after Jimmy talked with college recruiters about subjects needed for studying international business in college and Mandarin came up, he dropped his previous course schedule and did what was necessary to add the language.

Jimmy’s type of impression was one type of many reported by Moran, who told the board that students’ impressions of learning Mandarin ranged from being “interesting, fun and unique” to “useful for the future” to being “the most foreign of foreign languages they’ve ever studied.”

While all members of the board agreed that the ideal path for building a successful program would be to duplicate neighboring districts in offering a middle school program due to the fact that students generally choose a primary foreign language to study by the time they reach high school.

However, it’s unclear how this would be done given recent and future financial problems faced by the district in addition to problems with finding and retaining teachers for the program, with Westford’s only current part time Mandarin teacher expected to leave for Houston next year.

Like last year, the program will only be open to juniors and seniors who had previously taken a class in another foreign language.