Learning Chinese could become course option in Wilmette District 39

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Updated: March 3, 2012 8:05AM

Mandarin Chinese may soon be offered to Wilmette School District 39 fifth-graders. If that happens, the district will join a handful of local districts to provide the language to its students.

Curriculum Director Melanie Horowitz has told district School Board members that parents of current fourth-grade students have been alerted to the possibility already. Fourth-grade students are also being surveyed about the languages they might want to take in middle school.

Classes could begin in this fall, for the 2012-13 school year, as a world language option, she said.

Still, creating a Chinese language course offering is contingent on several factors, including finding a qualified instructor and having enough students interested in taking the course, as well as ensuring that what gets taught in District 39 aligns well with the Mandarin Chinese courses offered at New Trier High School.

Providing another language offering was a 2009 recommendation from the district’s Community Review Committee; the district already considered Arabic, Russian and Mandarin as possible additions to its curriculum.

That currently includes Spanish, which is taught at all levels, and Latin, German and French, offered as second language choices between fifth and eighth grades.

Administrative planners settled on Mandarin because of its broad world use — 20 percent of the world’s population calls China home; Chinese is the most widely spoken first language in the world; and most Chinese people speak or understand Mandarin Chinese.

China’s role a factor

China’s growing economic strength also means knowing Chinese also will prove important to students as they enter the future global work force, Horowitz and team member Kelly Jackson said.

Chinese constitutes only 4 percent of American schools’ world language courses, but several local districts offer it, Horowitz said. That includes 20 Chicago charter schools, as well as elementary and high school districts in Arlington Heights, Barrington, Lake Forest and Northbrook, as well as New Trier.

District 39 has worked not only with New Trier’s language department, but also with Arlington Heights School District 25 and Michigan State University’s Confucius Institute to create a possible curriculum.

Classes probably would focus on teaching students Chinese characters of the so-called simplified “common speech” used most widely since the 1950s. They would also include a cultural component to broaden students knowledge.

Horowitz and Jackson assured board members repeatedly on Monday that they would work closely with New Trier High School to align what District 39 teaches with the high school’s offerings.

When board member Keith Dronen worried about courses spending too much time on culture and not enough on learning the language, Jackson said classes would focus considerable attention on reading, writing and become familiar with some conversational ability.

“Is it going to be more of a Berlitz-style program, with an emphasis on speaking the language, or will be 50-50 on writing and learning other aspects,” Dronen asked.

Speech and writing

“What we decide will be determined on the research we do,” Horowitz replied. “Oral communication would be a good place to start, but the character writing needs to come along with that.”

She said the plan is to offer Chinese language classes to only two fifth-grade sections initially. That takes advantage of the expected high numbers of students entering Highcrest Middle School in 2012-13, while minimizing the chance that Chinese classes would take away students from existing language classes, she said.

Next month the district wants to form a committee of administrators and teachers, as well as members of New Trier’s language department; visit local Chinese teaching programs; and continue to refine its own program goals.

Interviews for a Chinese teacher could take place in March, with hiring and materials selection possible in April or May.

More information on the district’s Mandarin Chinese program development is available in the district’s Jan. 23 School Board meeting packet, available at www.wilmette39.org.