Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Dual Immersion Conference

I was not at school today, as I was attending the aforementioned conference. We received training and materials for teaching math in Chinese as well as heard from Dr. Myriam Mett of the National Foreign Language Center. 

We learned about Chinese curriculum coming form Susan Gong and her team at BYU that integrates the first grade core into a series of 35 books, giving the new language meaningful context and a presentable format. The books are currently being printed and will be in our classrooms sometime next week.

Everyone is still learning how to best teach in this immersion program, and it's exciting to be among the first in the nation to be doing so.  We're part of something quite revolutionary, something to which so many are committed to help make succeed. Thank you for your patience as we continue to learn and improve one day at time :)

I was just thinking today how incredible that the kids are already starting to produce language. The first stage in learning by immersion is the input stage. With Chinese being such a foreign sounding tongue, this input stage seems to be a bit longer before they connect meaning with the sound, store the sound and meaning together in their brain, and start to use it in applicable situations. 

But just yesterday I heard students telling each other to "lai" instead of saying it in English, telling each other dui bu qi and mei guan xi, and writing beautiful characters. It makes me get goosebumps almost to think of the opportunities I have been given and these kids will be given by being able to communicate, see, and understand the world in this beautiful language and culture. All efforts are worth it.

Many are still in mostly the input stage, so don't be alarmed if you don't hear them producing whole sentences or even some of the vocabulary. As we repeatedly use it in class and I give them more opportunities to hear it, associate it, and become comfortable with it, they will begin to speak.

At school today your child learned about traditions and legends associated with the Mid-Autumn or Moon Festival, and should have brought home a story they made about it as well as a puppet they can introduce themselves with . "Ni hao! Wo jiao_______"

1 comment:

  1. In a dual immersion program first of all if you cannot immerse yourself in the language and culture by living abroad, this is the best way to learn a language immersion.Again learning a new language not only developes ou brain but also keeps its fresh and creative by thinking of new things.And of courrse it is a big fact that who value education need to be aware of the facts. Not the emotions.

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