Chinese Immersion program advancing
BY STEPHANIE KOHL skohl@pioneerlocal.com January 25, 2012 7:15AM
South Barrington Thursday Jan 19 2012 Rose Elementary School student six-year-olds Cayden Hawkinson and Ashley Fern check out classmate Michael Sun as he tries on the dragon head for a mini-parade inside of their classroom. Rose School houses the district's Chinese Immersion Program. | Michelle LaVigne~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: February 27, 2012 8:09AM
Only 87 days in to studying Mandarin Chinese, Mary Weerts is impressed with just how quickly her first-graders are picking up the language.
The 2011-12 school year is the first year Barrington Community Unit School District 220 has offered a Chinese Immersion program.
The program is housed at Barbara B. Rose School in South Barrington and includes 42 kindergarten students and 47 first-graders. Each grade level is divided into two sections and students are taught half the day in Mandarin Chinese and half the day in English. Di Zhang teaches kindergartners in Chinese and Mary Ryan teaches them for the English portion of the day.
While Weerts teaches first-graders in Mandarin Chinese, Megan Brennan teaches them in English. None of the kids in the program knew any Chinese prior to entering.
“People have a variety of reasons for putting their children in the program,” said Kathryn Wolfkiel, director of the Chinese Immersion program. “Children are sponges at this point and they really pick it up quickly.”
Children are taught math, science and Chinese language arts, with a goal to be fluent in the language by the time students reach high school. Students will move through elementary school together with a new kindergarten class starting every year. Plans are still being made for how the program will be incorporated at the middle and high school levels, Wolfkiel said.
Wolfkiel added the district would like to have the program in more than just one school in the district and there are tentative plans to include next year’s kindergarten class at Countryside School in Barrington Hills, though nothing is finalized.
First-graders Andres Rojas and Alicia Miller are both in the Chinese Immersion program. Although neither of them had experience with Chinese before enrolling, Rojas knows Spanish and Miller knows Indonesian.
“I really wanted to know if it was the same (as) Spanish to write it,” Rojas said of his interest in learning Chinese. Rojas’ Chinese name is Anan.
Miller, whose Chinese name is Shi Shi, said she has really enjoyed learning Mandarin Chinese and it hasn’t been as hard as she thought. She said Weerts, known as Miao Laoshi by her students, acts out words to help students learn the meanings and the students do a lot of repeating to learn how to say words. Writing the words has also been fun, she said.
“She shows us the word sheet and she shows us how to write it before we do it,” Miller said.
Weerts said her students have been exposed to about 200 characters and write and/or recognize 70-80 characters. She said there are several students in the program who are trilingual and those students are generally more sensitive to the tone of Mandarin. Some students sound like native Mandarin speakers, she said.
The entire school has really embraced the Mandarin Chinese program. There are signs in both Chinese and English throughout the school and the art classes have been completing art projects related to Chinese culture.
“We’re a globally-connected society with business, technology and the majority of the rest of the industrialized world speaks a second language, why shouldn’t we,” said Rose Principal Scott Carlson.
Carlson said the program is providing exposure and awareness of other cultures for students at the school.
In honor of the Chinese New Year, Barbara Rose School will host a celebration from 6:30 p.m. until about 8 p.m. today (Thursday) at the school, 61 W. Penny Road. The event will include Chinese food, riddles, traditional Chinese calligraphy, crafts, Kung Fu and Chinese line dancing demonstrations and a Chinese New Year parade. All District 220 families are welcome.
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