I like ice cream / Bing qi lin
Rice faculty member’s initiative spurs Chinese lessons throughout Texas

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News staff

In classrooms throughout Houston and Dallas this summer, middle and high school students are conversing in Mandarin, asking one another, “What’s your favorite color?” or telling one another, “I like ice cream.” But these aren’t classrooms in Chinese heritage schools; these are your everyday public school classrooms with students from every background imaginable.

	JEFF FITLOW
	Newly trained Chinese instructors are teaching Mandarin to about 400 Texas students. The teachers were trained by workshops directed by the Chinese Language Teachers Association of Texas (CLTA-Texas) and led by Rice’s Meng Yeh.

American, Hispanic, Russian, Pakistani and Vietnamese students learn about Chinese culture in Fang Ji’s classroom in Spring Woods Middle School. Ji teaches Chinese and Japanese at Lonestar Community College but took on a new challenge this summer when she brought her knowledge to teens and preteens.

To equip her for the endeavor, she participated in training workshops directed by the Chinese Language Teachers Association of Texas (CLTA-Texas) and led by Meng Yeh, senior lecturer of Chinese at Rice.

“Though I had training and teaching experience, I still learned a lot in the workshops,” Ji said. “Especially about teenagers — the teaching method and strategy is very different.”

The teaching workshops were made possible through a grant from a STARTALK, or “Start Talking,” a project by the National Security Language Initiative to increase the number and expertise of students and teachers in critical languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Persian, Hindi and Urdu.

About 40 Mandarin speakers from different professions attended the workshops, which provide 100 hours of instruction on topics such as curriculum design, teaching Chinese as a second language and Chinese language structure. While not all participants were teachers by trade, they were united by the common goal of teaching others the Chinese language and culture. From those participants, 11 were selected to teach K-12 Chinese classes in seven school districts in Houston, and 13 were selected for four districts Dallas. About 400 students are taking the classes. 

“Students want to take Chinese lessons, even though they’re not currently offered in many schools in Texas,” said Yeh, the former president of CLTA-Texas and a faculty member of Rice’s Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Center for Asian Studies. “By training the Chinese-heritage school teachers in the current language pedagogies, we’re making more learning opportunities available to Texas students.”

The programs immerse the students in Chinese culture and language through ice-breaking activities that allow them to apply their new skills and knowledge. Like most summer camps, there are also educational games and competitions with opportunities to win prizes such as iPods. There is no language-proficiency requirement for students; an oral proficiency exam helps to place the students in appropriate class levels: beginning, beginning-high and intermediate.

Most of the student programs began last week and will run for three to four weeks. The theme this year is “Your Space, My Space,” which guides students to use the Chinese language to explore their own space and compare it with the spaces of young Chinese people in the spheres of lifestyle, personal preferences, family structure and school activities.

“The workshops showed us how to teach with task-based activities so it’s not repetitive or boring,” said Cynthia Chen, one of the instructors. “We try to create situations of how the language would be used in the real world.”

Chen said instead of drilling the students on vocabulary, she sets up one-on-one exercises in which the students interview each other.

“Smaller groups give teachers a better chance to listen, and the children don’t feel as intimidated,” she said. “I know it’s working, too, because the students are very engaged and show that they want to learn more. I will teach them how to count one through 10, and they will ask me, ‘Well, how do you say zero?'”

Ji is having similar results in her classroom. One of her students asked her for extra work to make up for the time he will be on a family vacation.

JEFF FITLOW
For one of the hourlong sessions on Chinese culture, the students learn martial arts.

“I think the students know that learning about different languages and cultures is important for them and can impact their futures,” Ji said. “Not only does learning a language help them communicate, but it is the first step in understanding other cultures. And that can contribute to their overall career goals.”

Ji hopes that as more children learn about different cultures, fewer misunderstandings will occur. She sees the Chinese classes as a way of reducing miscommunication — even if the students do not pursue further education in the subject. Because the classes are also infused with hourlong lessons about Chinese culture, the students get hands-on experience making art, cooking, writing calligraphy, “lion dancing” and playing traditional games such as Chinese yo-yo, chess and shuttlecock.

“It gives children the chance to see what Chinese culture is really like — it’s not just about sitting and reading,” Chen said. “There are games and dancing just like anywhere else.”

Chen came to the U.S. from Taiwan 22 years ago. She began teaching the classes because she wanted to give back to the community and learn how to best teach her young son.

“If you’re able to speak English and Chinese, then you can speak to one-third of the world,” Chen said. “That’s so powerful. Think of how much you can do. I feel so fortunate to be able to speak both. I want to pass that on to my son and other children.”

Through the work of Chen, Ji, Yeh and others like them, more children in Houston have that opportunity. Yeh said she hopes that the program will act as a grassroots network to show school administrators the demand and need for having Chinese classes.

“I hope schools in Texas will see that students are interested in learning and people are interested in teaching,” Yeh said.

She said that to date only one public elementary school and two public middle schools in Texas offer Chinese, and while several private schools do, Texas has fewer offerings than most states.

The recent STARTALK grant builds on more than $500,000 in outside funding that Rice Chinese-language faculty have received in the past couple of years for their efforts in education outreach. Last year, Lily Chen, senior lecturer of Chinese, the Chao Center and the Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies received a Freeman Grant to establish the Institute for Chinese Language Teaching, which trains people proficient in Chinese to teach in middle or high schools.

To learn more about Texas STARTALK visit http://www.txstartalk.org/.