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With the benefit of an $832,000 federal grant, Cape elementary students are preparing for an academic adventure designed to teach them Mandarin Chinese, the official language of China and the language spoken by more people on Earth than any other. Cape is the only school district in Delaware offering Chinese to its students, said Supervisor of Curriculum and Instruction Michael Kelley.
“In addition to learning to read, write and speak Chinese, our students will learn about Chinese culture and civilization – the longest sustained civilization on our planet,” said Kelley. The U.S. government determined Chinese is a foreign language that is critical for national security and commerce, he said. The Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) grant was created to encourage schools to teach critical foreign languages.
The district’s original application for the grant was refused, but Kelley persevered with school board approval and assistance from the state Department of Education (DOE). District representatives said they were elated when the grant was awarded June 15, and the Lighthouse Chinese Program officially began.
“This is not just an education issue. It’s an economic issue, a civic issue, a social issue, a national security issue, and it’s everybody’s issue,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings when $244,000 - the first part of the grant - was issued to the district.
Benefits of Chinese
Students will begin by learning simple words and phrases, which may be trickier than it sounds because of the challenging use of tones when speaking Mandarin Chinese, Kelley said. For example, he said the word that in English would be pronounced “ma” has at least four different meanings based upon the tone used when speaking the word in Chinese. Differences in voice inflection can make “ma” mean horse, hemp, mother or scold.
“It can be very challenging,” Kelley said. “We don’t want one of our students to meet someone’s mother and call her a horse.”
A part of the project Kelley finds exciting is that the study of Chinese will be new to almost every student, thereby placing all on an equal playing field and eliminating barriers based on gender, race and financial resources. This, Kelley said, will contribute to student confidence.
Other benefits are that early work with a foreign language contributes to first language acquisition and later language acquisition.
As for the futures of Cape’s students, Kelley said Chinese is recognized as the emerging language of the global market and this year became the most dominant language used on the internet.
All elementary students will study Chinese for at least half a school year with classes once a week.
The kindergarten through second-grade program will expand to two classes per week during the second half of the school year, and information about China and its culture will be integrated into other classes such as science, music and art, Kelley said.
“Our students will also be more aware about China this year because it will be hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, ” he said.
Community and costs
A condition of receiving a FLAP grant is that the recipient will strive to continue the program after the three-year grant expires. Kelley said the district is in the process of establishing a community advisory committee to provide for continuing the program.
Kelley said the district is also looking at ways to continue Chinese language classes for students who will be moving from its elementary schools to its middle schools next year.
DOE may be able to help, Kelley said, as it recently received authorization to approve visas for people who can come to Delaware from forewing nations to teach for one or two years.
Additionally, the district is seeking community involvement in its Lighthouse Chinese Program, which will include after-school study groups for parents and others interested in learning more about the language.
The FLAP grant requires an equal matching investment of money spent or in-kind services but district officials predict only a minimal monetary outlay will be required to match the grant.
“The key is what we can allocate as in-kind services and resources within costs that have already been budgeted,” said Director of Business Operations Edward Seibert.
“We want to provide the in-kind match from services and facilities that are already being provided and are available,” he said.
In-kind matches would include the pro-rata charge for time spent on the program by administrators, time spent using available computer resources, classroom maintenance and tuition reimbursement for the teachers of Chinese.
In addition to the in-kind matches, Kelley estimates that approximately $20,000 will be required for the purchase of classroom materials. Kelley said he believes the cash outlay will be for one-time expenditures and expects there will be no cash payments applied to the match during the second and third years of the federally funded program.
“Twenty thousand dollars is a small price to pay for a $244,000 investment in our children’s education,” said Kelley, a father of a son attending elementary school in the district who already knows several words and is eagerly waiting for Chinese classes to begin.
The four teachers of Chinese language, one at each elementary school, will be preparing for classes and working on curriculum development from Wednesday, Sept. 5, to Friday, Sept. 7, and will begin classroom instruction Monday, Sept. 10.
More information about the Lighthouse Chinese Program is available at the district’s website at
http://cape.de.schoolwebpages.com/education/components/
scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=5229&sc_id=1188502029.
Meet the Cape district teachers of Chinese
Four teachers will be instructing Cape Henlopen School District students in Chinese this year. The new teachers are as follows:
Yang Grise
Yang Grise will be teaching Chinese at Rehoboth Elementary School. Coming to the United States from the capital city of Fujian Province, she earned her bachelor’s degree from Fujian Teacher University and taught middle school physical education in China for five years.
Grise came to the United States about four years ago and resides in Selbyville with her husband and young daughter. Appreciative of the community support she has received since arriving in the Cape Region, Grise said she looks forward to sharing her native language and culture with the children of the Cape district.
Lei Jin
Lei Jin, also a native of China, will be teaching Chinese at Richard A. Shields Elementary School. He earned his master’s degree in business administration from Tsinghua University in Beijing. He worked in the investment banking industry, and his responsibilities included presenting televised weekly stock market analyses.
Jin moved to Lewes with his wife, who is employed by the University of Delaware College of Earth and Marine Studies. Their son attended Shields and now attends Beacon Middle School. Jin said he is grateful for the education his son received at Shields and looks forward to contributing by providing an educational opportunity to other Shields’ students.
Darcy King
Darcy King of Virginia will be teaching Chinese at Milton Elementary School. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Asian studies from the University of Virginia and a certificate of Asian studies from Fudan University in Shanghai, China.
Now a resident of Bethany Beach, King has prior experience working with special needs children in Virginia public schools.
King said her interest in foreign language began with French when she was a child.
Her interest in Asian studies and the Chinese language emerged while she was in college, prompted in part by her fascination with a performance by a Chinese acrobatic troupe.
Jeffrey McLane
Jeffrey McLane, a former soldier and agent for the FBI, earned his bachelor’s degree in political science and Spanish from the University of Delaware and a juris doctorate from Widener Law School.
He earned certificates of proficiency in Polish and Chinese at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif.
McLane lives in Lewes with his wife, son and daughter. He said his son, who is attending Shields, previously resisted learning Chinese but is now excited to do so because the other students will be learning it.
Though not yet certified, Cape’s four teachers are enrolling in the University of Delaware Alternative Roots Program to obtain state teaching certifications.
There is only one certified teacher of Chinese in Delaware and having more critical foreign language teachers certified is a goal of the federal foreign language program.
Contact Georgia Leonhart at g.l.leonhart@comcast.net
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