Dec
12
Chief Sealth High School principal John Boyd
Filed Under General
The Seattle faculties have a new’guest’ teacher. Zhu Dan arrived in the Seattle colleges in January and will stay for an 18-month guest teacher program. Dan, who teaches college-level English in her local Kunming, China, has the option to extend her stay for another year.
Dan is one of 34 guest teachers in 19 states that are taking part in a new collaboration between China’s institute Hanban and the college Board, a non-profitable organization that administers the sophisticated Placement examinations and SAT testing ). Plans are for an additional 100 guest teachers across the US by this summer and 250 by 2009. The partnership is part of China’s sizeable effort to push the Mandarin language and getting people in other countries to learn it.
This is the ideal program for many Pacific Coast states that do a lot of business with China. Chief Sealth school principal John Boyd traveled to China as an element of a Hanban program and was inspired to supply a course in Mandarin to his Seattle colleges students. He and Noah Zeichner, who heads up the high school world language program, wanted to expand the world focus in his Seattle faculty. They have already got a student exchange program from Chongqing, China.
Zhu Dan teaches the Mandarin language in three Seattle faculties – Denny Middle, Madison Middle, and Chief Sealth colleges. While the institute Hanban pays her a stipend, the Seattle colleges provide housing, airfare and cover other costs. Dan is residing with Sealth teacher Frank Cantwell and his folks.
Dan applied for the guest teacher program for 3 reasons – to improve her own English skills, to help northern Americans understand more about China and its culture, and to help get the program started within the Seattle colleges. She wants to leave her students with enough knowledge of the Mandarin language to survive a trip to her country.
Before traveling to the US and the Seattle faculties, Dan had to take a 14 day crash course in Beijing. It covered our culture and education system, our money system, and how to write a check ( something rarely done in China ).
lots of her Seattle faculties scholars took her course, as it sounded engaging. Others have friends or family members who speak Mandarin. Within her first 2 weeks of instruction, Dan’s Seattle colleges students could count to ten in Mandarin, pronounce the Chinese names she gave them, work thru the pronunciation drills and vocabulary exercises given them, and sing a song about the Chinese New Year to the tune’My Darlin’ Clementine’. Additionally, Dan shares her Chinese culture with the scholars, making her classes even more interesting.
Besides the guest teacher program, many Seattle schools now are providing instruction in Mandarin, as well as advanced Placement courses in Chinese and the AP testing that earns university credit for the Seattle schools students who pass. For this year, Dan’s Mandarin class at Sealth highschool meets after school. It is going to be part of the ordinary, daytime curriculum in the autumn. Principal Boyd is encouraging elementary colleges inside his area of the Seattle faculties to apply together for a second guest teacher for the Mandarin language.
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