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“Ni hao,” said Sen. Tom Carper, greeting students as he entered Darcy King’s third-grade Milton Elementary School Chinese language class. The words sounded like “Knee howl.”
The students smiled because the senator had greeted them by saying hello in Chinese. “Ni hao,” the young scholars responded, their tone on the second word going down then back up as King had trained them, describing it as similar to a smiley face.
“You are learning to speak the language known by more people in the world, in the biggest country on earth,” Carper told the children after he and King helped them figure out there were 250 million people in the United States and 1.4 billion people in China.
Carper’s visit to the Chinese class to learn more about the Cape Henlopen School District’s Lighthouse Chinese Program topped his Thursday, Jan. 3 agenda.
“Why is it important to learn to speak foreign languages?” he asked the third-graders.
“To be able to speak to other people,” 9-year-old Dwayne Barnes responded.
Joining Carper were district Supervisor of Curriculum and Instruction Michael Kelley, school board member Noble Prettyman, who represents the Milton area, and Principal Sheila Baumgardner.
Enthusiasm was high as individual students displayed their skills. They pretended to meet their teacher on the street, said hello, introduced themselves by name and said their age.
Please, thank you and friend are among the most important words in every language, Carper said. The students knew how to say the words in Chinese.
The students joined Carper in discussing people in the United States who speak other languages and consumer goods that are made all over the world. All agreed that learning language is important.
At the start of the 2007-08 school year, the district started teaching Chinese to all of its kindergarten and elementary school students with the assistance of an $831,885 Foreign Language Assistance Program grant received from the U.S. Department of Education. The federal funding is a part of a national security language initiative designed to increase the number of Americans learning critical-need foreign languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi and Farsi.
The program attracted Carper’s attention because it is the first such public school program in Delaware.
Asked about their experiences with Chinese over the holiday break, Devin Brown told about how she was able to say hello to people when she and her family visited the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. Others spoke of using their newfound language skills at Chinese restaurants.
Carper commended the students’ efforts.
“Xie xie,” the students said, the words for thank you sounding like she she.
Starting Tuesday. Jan. 22, fourth- and fifth-grade students will be studying Chinese once each week. Students in grades one through three will have language class once per week and will be using a Chinese language computer program in computer class once each week. King said she is encouraged at the decision to keep third-grade students in the language loop during the second half of the school year.
Contact Georgia Leonhart at g.l.leonhart@comcast.net
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