Don’t dabble; Chinese is big commitment, other schools say

What will it take for a Chinese language and studies program to succeed in Stowe schools?

The school board, educators and the community must recognize that the bold, original curriculum step is also a long-term commitment that eventually must be fully funded by the district.

That’s the view of Vermont educators who have incorporated Chinese into their schools.

“The opportunity for our kids in our rural schools to do this kind of learning and travel is tremendous,” said Ron Stahley, superintendent for the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union, which has incorporated Chinese and the study of Asia from kindergarten through 12th grade at half of its 10 schools.

Stahley, who spearheaded the move to incorporate Chinese, first as principal at Leland and Gray High School in Townshend and then at Windham Southeast, said the experience for his students has been unmatched.

Funding to launch the programs was obtained from the Freeman Foundation of Stowe, and it included foreign learning and exchange opportunities, opening students to experiences they simply would not have had otherwise. Students have been exposed not only to the culture and a language (Mandarin) of China, but to the fastest-growing economy in the world and the education system behind it.

“It has been life-altering,” Stahley said.

At least a dozen of Vermont’s 284 school districts — including schools at Windham Southeast, Southwest and Central supervisory unions and in the Burlington school district — have incorporated Chinese language, and some Asian studies programs, into their curriculums. That runs contrary to information the Stowe Reporter obtained two weeks ago from the state Education Department, indicating that no public schools teach Chinese, though at least two private schools do.

Even so, experience with Chinese in public schools is very new, as all the Vermont programs have been launched within the decade.

The experiences at those schools are relevant to Stowe as the school board considers replacing French with Mandarin Chinese in the middle and high schools. The switch comes as a longtime French teacher is retiring.

The Stowe board is expected to consider the proposal June 5, and the school superintendent’s office has started advertising for a part-time Mandarin teacher at Stowe Middle School. A full-time high school teacher would come a few years later.

Cam Page, who chairs the school board, said she expects to have a debate and, she hopes, a final decision at next week’s board meeting.

“My feeling is there are a fair number of people interested in seeing Chinese, but I also hope we have people (speak up) who feel the other way,” Page said. “It’s our intent to have a decision that day.”

Since the board discussed the idea a couple of weeks ago, Page said, she’s received a lot of reaction from residents, many of whom support the idea as enlightened and forward-thinking and others who question the expense and the relevance.

“I’ve had feedback both ways,” Page said. “Some are very enthusiastic for supporting the Chinese; they think it’s much more in step with what’s going on the world, and I’ve had very strong comments … feeling we should be keeping French, that the U.S. has a Euro-centric focus and (we’re) living so close to Quebec.”

Chinese taught at Burlington High

At Burlington High School, the Chinese language program has drawn a lot of interest. But, as is the case in all other districts where Chinese was introduced, it did not replace Spanish or French, as it would in Stowe; it was an added language.

Burlington High also offers language classes in French, Latin, Spanish and German. The school has about 1,135 students, compared to 230 at Stowe.

Zhihang Hao has taught Chinese at Burlington High for the last 10 years, and was the school’s first teacher of the language. He has a master’s degree from Clark University in Worcester.

“It’s always good to hear more schools are interested,” Hao said. “I think in Vermont, we’re sort of slow to catch on, but in other states they’re not.”

Hao said the reason many public schools across the country are offering Chinese has a lot to do with opportunities for young people in a competitive global economy.

“China is definitely playing a more and more important role in economics,” Hao said. “This country really needs students who can speak (Chinese) to meet the needs of the future.”

Some parents of Stowe students have expressed concern about the difficulty of learning Chinese, and whether taking classes in high school would be meaningful at all.

Hao agrees that Chinese is at first glance a more complex language than Spanish or French, as its writing component involves a set of characters instead of an alphabet.

Still, students who stick with the classes will catch on, Hao said.

“It’s not an easy language. That’s a given,” Hao said. “As far as beginning level, my experience here is that it’s not really any harder than any other language. As far as speaking is concerned, you have to learn some strange sounds and pronounce weird vowels. But Chinese is actually, if you learn to speak, easier than English in a lot of senses.”

For example, Chinese doesn’t involve conjugating verbs to indicate distinctions such as voice, tense, number and mood, whereas English and other languages do.

Burlington’s Chinese program doesn’t interfere with the other foreign-language classes that are offered, Hao said. Students are required to take foreign-language electives, and Chinese counts toward that requirement.

Hao and others said studies show that youngsters who are introduced to any foreign language — including Chinese — at the youngest ages become better learners and are more proficient at all languages, including English.

Hao teaches all four Chinese classes at Burlington High, ranging in skill-level from one to four. The beginner classes typically attract 13 or 14 students, while the upper levels will have five or six, Hao said.

The beginner course is for students who have no prior knowledge of Chinese, according to Hao’s course description, posted on the high school’s Web site. In that introductory class, students focus on developing listening and speaking skills; learn to read and write and understand basic sentence structure; and understand Pinyin — phonetic symbols — instead of Hanzi — characters.

Students also learn about Chinese culture, society and history throughout the course. The goal by the end of the first class is for students to “engage in basic social interactions in content-specific situations in the target language,” according to the course description.

Students who continue on to the advanced class, according to the course description, will “understand and use important ideas with details in highly contextualized authentic texts when listening and writing.”

“The majority of kids who graduate from this program continue onto the college level,” Hao said. “In order to be proficient in the language, you need to continue studying a couple of years at the college level.”

In exploring a Chinese program in Stowe, it’s important that school officials hire an experienced teacher, Hao said.

“Hopefully you find someone who has taught the course before,” Hao said. “If you hire a new graduate fresh from college, it’s a very difficult task for that person — really, it’s studying the program from scratch.”

Statewide effort funds education

The Freeman Foundation of Stowe, whose mission is to strengthen Asian-American understanding through education, is at the center of efforts in Vermont and elsewhere to introduce high school students to Chinese and Asian Culture.

Juefei Wang, director of the nonprofit Asian Studies Outreach Program at the University of Vermont, which is partially funded by the Freeman Foundation, said there are a growing number of opportunities for students and teachers to learn about Asia, and particularly the Chinese language.

Wang’s statewide program provides funding to schools and school districts, and organizes conferences, workshops and overseas exchange for teachers.

For high school students, Wang said, the outreach program offers two major options for such studies. The first is a three-week exchange, in which students study Chinese language and culture at UVM and get to visit China.

Second, three school-based programs receive funding — Windham Central Supervisory Union, Windham Southeast and Southwest Supervisory Union, and the Greater Rutland Asian Studies Project.

Over the last decade, some 9,700 Vermonters have visited three Asian countries through the program, Wang said.

In southern Vermont, the Windham Southeast and Southwest union school districts have not only incorporated Chinese into some of their schools, but have also launched learning exchanges with China. This summer, the Windham Southeast district will host its first Chinese students (15 to 20 are expected), while students from that area have traveled to China for three consecutive years for home stays, school visits, classes and sightseeing.

Neighboring Leland and Gray launched its Journey East program several years ago, in which two dozen students study Chinese language and culture and produce a performance piece, which they perform in China in the spring. The program also includes a 12-day residency at a school in China, where the Vermont teens collaborate with Chinese students for a farewell performance at the host school.

How do Vermont’s cash-strapped school afford all this?

While all the public schools in Vermont launched their programs thanks to the Freeman Foundation, including Burlington High’s first six years of its program, all will eventually have to pay for their programs themselves.

“The granting will eventually phase out altogether,” said Stahley, the superintendent in Brattleboro, “so districts have to be committed to the programs, and paying for them, from the start.”

Funding concerns have nevertheless not been a deterrent, because as China and other countries play a larger role in the global village, interest in Asian studies has grown, Vermont students have flocked to the classes and the programs, and educators are supportive, engaged and enthusiastic.

Colchester ninth-graders, for example, are now required to take a survey course on Asian studies.

Stowe would probably be eligible to receive Freeman Foundation funding for a Chinese program, Wang said, and the foundation said this week it’s pleased with Stowe’s interest.

Colleges offer Chinese, too

High school students who study Chinese at elementary, middle and high schools have opportunities at the college level as well, Wang said.

Both UVM and Middlebury College offer Chinese as a major, and many others offer minors and classes.

“Many colleges have language requirements and students need to learn one language anyway,” Wang said. “It can open so many more doors for them. The number of colleges that are offering Chinese has been increasing.”

The U.S. College Board, Wang noted, recently decided to offer advanced-placement Chinese classes at schools beginning in 2007. In addition, a recent College Board survey found 2,400 high schools across the country are interested in offering Chinese classes if they get help with hiring teachers and funding programs.