FeedsChinese teachers educate students
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Teachers (left to right) Shi Hong, Zhang Yufei, and Xiong Guofang will teach elementary and middle-school students at Westwood Schools this year.A local school district that serves Inkster students was chosen to participate in an educational program that will bring the basics of Mandarin Chinese to the classroom.
The Westwood Community School District has been selected to host three native Mandarin-speaking teachers as part of the 2008 Chinese Guest Teacher Program.
Glen Taylor, the principal of Daly School, said the program would help students grasp the concept of multicultural learning, and introduce them to the most widely spoken first language in the world.
“It’s a great thing for our students,” he said. “It gives them a chance to learn something they may not otherwise be exposed to.”
Dr. Ernando Minghine, who worked to find housing and other amenities for the teachers, said he believed the program would be helpful to students seeking to compete in what is quickly becoming a global society.
“I have always been a big proponent of learning about other cultures,” he said. “Students need to be exposed to how other cultures work to create more understanding about the world we live in.”
Expansive programs
Mandarin Chinese is the national language of the more than 1.3 billion inhabitants of China and millions more ethnic Chinese around the globe. Chinese topped English as the most-used language on the Internet by 2007, according to forecasts by the World Intellectual Property Organization.
The Chinese Guest Teacher program placed 136 teachers in both school and district assignments to teach at the high school, middle school, and elementary school level starting this year. This is the third group of teachers to arrive in the United States as part of an ongoing collaboration between Hanban, the Office of Chinese Language Council International, and the College Board.
Teachers receive a monthly living stipend from Hanban while local schools are responsible for mentoring, housing, transportation and for the costs of the required visa processing and required health insurance.
The College Board and the National Council of State Supervisors for Languages representatives interview guest teachers individually to assess teaching skills, adaptability and English proficiency.
A new environment
At Westwood, teachers Shi Hong, Xiong Guofang and Zhang Yufei, will instruct students in grades two through eight. Students will receive 30-60 minutes of Chinese language instruction each week. The teachers will offer services at Daly and Thorne Elementary and Tomlinson Middle School.
On the first day of classes this week, teacher Zhang Yufei said she was pleased with the students so far.
“I really like the students – I love them, actually,” she said.
Zhang is also employed full time as a teacher in China.
In addition to teaching classes, the teachers will also assist with curriculum development and materials development and will serve as a cultural resource for other subject areas and for cultural enrichment activities.
Though guest teachers work at host schools for one year, they have the option to stay for up to three years if both the school and teacher are satisfied.
The program has been successful, said College Board President Gaston Caperton.
“We’re more excited than ever about how the Chinese Guest Teacher Program continues to grow,” he said. “Having started out with 37 guest teachers in 2006, the total number of teachers hosted in the U.S. through the program for 2008-09 will be 193, including the 136 new participants.”
Students think globally
In a survey conducted by the Advanced Placement Program in 2004, nearly 2,400 high schools expressed an interest in offering the advanced Chinese course in 2006-07, but for many of these schools, this goal may go unrealized.
The schools are either are understaffed or have no teacher of Chinese, and many see no prospect of finding the teachers necessary to build their programs. According to the Chinese Language Association of Secondary-Elementary Schools, there are currently only about 250 Chinese language teachers in secondary schools in the United States.
The Chinese Guest Teacher Program was created to address that shortfall.
Tom Watkins, the former state superintendent of schools, said students are responding to the call to learn about other cultures.
“We live in an ever shrinking world connected in a global economy and should be preparing students to compete in the future.,” he said. “This also stands to reinforce that all students can achieve at high levels.”
