Students Taking Spanish, French; Leaders Pushing Chinese, Arabic
The melody of children’s voices fills the morning air as a kindergarten class at Woodstock Elementary School here begins the day with a folk song. Once the boys and girls settle on the carpet, teacher Shin Yen reads from an oversize picture book, stopping often to prompt her pupils to repeat new words and answer questions about the story and characters.
The scene would be familiar to most American grade schools, but for the exotic tones and inflections of the language. This and other classes for grades K-5 are conducted completely in Mandarin Chinese, under one of the rare but growing immersion programs designed to build a pipeline of U.S. students with advanced skills in what are now deemed critical languages.
Though Portland’s school system has quietly fostered the initiative at Woodstock for eight years, Spanish and French classes offered throughout the 48,000-student district are still by far the most popular—both here...
This article is available to subscribers only.
To keep reading this article and more, subscribe now or purchase this article.
Subscribe to Education Week and Save
Get a full year and save up to 45%!
Viewed
Emailed
Recommended
Commented
- Superintendent
- Pinellas County Schools, Pinellas County, FL
- K-8 Principal
- EdVantages/Performance Academies, Detroit, MI
- 2 Positions -Associate Superintendent and Chief Academic Officer, and Director of Human of Resources
- Washington County Public Schools, Hagerstown, MD
- Principals
- Prince George's County Public Schools, MD
- Program Coordinator
- Institute for Educational Advancement, South Pasadena, CA
