If you haven’t already heard the big news, The Children’s School is expanding the language-learning program to include Chinese (Mandarin) beginning in the 2018-19 school year. Our youngest learners, age 3 – grade 2, will be immersed in the new language while grade 3 and up will continue on into a revamped Spanish program. We are very excited to develop an updated language-learning program that encourages a higher level of proficiency!
We recently sat down with Krista Forsgren, a former TCS parent and world language consultant, to break down how the new language will impact children’s experience here at TCS Atlanta.
Q: What (and how) would a 3-year-old learn Chinese? What aspects of our language-learning program promote childhood and play?
A: The way any toddler learns language is through listening, watching, and mimicking. If you watch babies and how they first learn to produce language, they are taking so much in. Even if you think about a three-year-old jumping all over the place, they actually are attentive in a way that we lose very soon. The way they learn language is very intuitively, by absorbing a lot around them through listening and taking in more because their ears are really open to a lot more that’s going on around them because when we get older, we are distracted by lots more obligations and things we’re supposed to do. In China, I used to live nextdoor to a school, and I would hear the first thing they did every morning was recite poetry in a chanting way. By the time you finish kindergarten in China, you know hundreds of poems because you sing them and chant them. So, through singing, music, play, and not thinking too much, kids will learn a new language. Their brains are still wiring so they learn it more easily because they have more brain connections open to learning.
Q: What advantages do our youngest learners gain from learning Chinese before Spanish?
A: The reason that we decided to do this was because unfortunately, in the society that we live in right now, we don’t have enough exposure to non-Western languages such as Arabic, Chinese, etc. I’ve found in other programs I’ve started that if you can introduce Chinese language or another non-Western language earlier in age, children have built up fewer walls in their mind to “this is different/hard/not comfortable.” Even if you go into schools where they don’t start teaching Chinese or Arabic until middle school, the middle school kids’ brains are already more wired, in general, for language learning so it’s harder to do something that’s very different from English. Their thought process is also a little bit more closed off to learning something that’s more different. Culturally, and for creating open minds and open hearts, it’s much easier to start something that’s a little more different at a younger age. Chinese language is much simpler than many people think it is, but we tell ourselves it’s not as we get older. So these kids won’t think that one language is harder than the other when they’re speaking it.
Q: What other skills will children gain (or be able to bring to the table) through language-learning?
A: When you’re learning a language, you’re learning many of the concepts that you’re learning in the classroom. For example, I know that it’s very common for young students to come together on a rug, talk about the weather, the day of the week, the month, etc. You can do those things in other languages, too! Kids will learn how to say January in Chinese as well as in English. They’ll be able to talk about how cool/warm it is today and all of the basic concepts that they’re learning to do as part of their day. The Chinese program will be structured in a way that will reinforce these concepts a lot of the time. They’ll do some new things too but the skills that they’re learning in other areas can also be reinforced and reviewed in Chinese language. When they get to third grade, they’ll do the same thing in Spanish. It’ll be a little more complicated because they won’t be talking about everyday things like the weather, but they’ll talk about related themes.
Q: Where will second graders land when they finish the Chinese program? How is this change going to influence language-learning across all grades?
A: Our hope and our dream is that with regular, active learning environments to learn Chinese, these children will be very comfortable and familiar with communicating in Chinese. For example, they might go on a trip to China and they’ll be able to communicate, get by, get directions, taxis, and be part of the process in a way; or they’ll even be able to host Chinese students or teachers. They’ll be part of the community in a different way when they have that Chinese ability. Communication is the main, overarching goal and each year we plan to have set content and skills for each grade. By the end of five years learning Chinese as a child, they should be able to communicate, listen, and get by. Reading and writing isn’t the focus because they are just beginning to learn how to read and write in English, and that takes a longer time. The influence will be more diversity in the world language program. Kids will be excited about learning Spanish and kids will be excited about learning Chinese in a way that’s targeted to build their confidence. Learning a language builds skills and confidence in a way that not many other subjects do. You have to fail, but it’s also so fun to be able to communicate with someone who has a different mother tongue than you.
Q: How are we going to make sure that this new initiative will be effectively implemented with support for teachers?
A: We’re really looking at the world language program in partnership with the [grade level] classrooms. Now, language is going to be a larger part of the weekly curriculum. World language teachers are going to be spending time with team leads to plan what they’re doing at each grade level, and they’ll be a part of that conversation in a way that hasn’t happened before at TCS.
Learn more about the world language expansion here and look out for more updates in the coming months!
