New Classes Bring China to St. Michael Albertville Classroom

One in five people on earth speak Chinese, the world’s top spoken language. What’s more, China now has the second largest economy, eclipsed only by the United States, and it is an increasingly powerful player in the world economy. So when the St. Michael-Albertville school district took a closer look at its world languages program back in 2006, they decided to bring Chinese into  the high school curriculum, trading it for the declining French program.

“We were looking at which languages that were really going to be needed in the 21^st century,” said Dr. Ann- Marie Foucault, the district’s director of curriculum and instruction.

Though the district’s Chinese program began in the high school, Foucault’s vision was to broaden it to younger students as well, and this year they took a big leap forward in that goal. Previously stymied by financial constraints, they found a way to expand when Foucault learned of a grant program through the College Board where Chinese teachers stay with local host families and teach in the schools for a minimal cost to the district-they give the teachers insurance benefits and pay them a $5,000-$6,000 stipend for the year. Thanks to the grant each of the three elementary schools now has a Chinese language teacher, and all students receive a 35-40 minute lesson once every six days.

Foucault said most of the first-year bugs have been worked out of the program, but transportation remains the biggest issue since the teachers don’t have driver’s licenses in the US and the area lacks public transportation. Other little hiccups such as dealing with food, internet use and cell phones have been solved, and Foucault said she will soon be looking for host families willing to open their home to a Chinese teacher for a semester next year.

One of these three teachers is Yuan Jing, who goes by the American name Samantha. To her students, she is called Yuanlaoshi, meaning “Yuan teacher”. Samantha has a major in English education and got a master’s degree at Peking University so she could teach Chinese to the many foreigners who live in Beijing.

Now she teaches at Fieldstone Elementary, where her students have spent their class time learning Chinese words and phrases, basic Chinese calligraphy and talking about Chinese cultural pieces such as the Great Wall. Students are currently learning different words in the family tree, such as mother, father, the different names for older and younger siblings and dog and cat.

Parents can see what their child is learning and help them remember their lessons through Chinese websites each of the teachers maintain, which contain many audio files so parents aren’t left guessing how to pronounce words.

“I wanted to open my mind and strengthen my teaching ability,” Yuan said, saying she is very lucky she got the job offer to come here after interviewing for the job via Skype with district administrators. Yuan said it is very rewarding to see the students learn new things about the language and the culture she grew up with.

“Every time they can make gains in achievement it pursues the goal for me,” she said. “I’m so honored to be teaching here.”

Foucault said she has plans for even more expansion of the Chinese program, aiming to bring it to the middle school level in time for the 2012-2013 school year and also having the elementary Chinese teachers visiting with the kindergarteners a few times a year to give them a taste and get them pumped up about learning more Chinese the following year.

“Parents have constantly come up to me and said, ‘Oh my gosh, we love this program.’ The community support has just been phenomenal,” Foucault said.