The Seattle schools 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 native Kunming, China, has the option to extend her stay for another year.
Dan is one of 34 guest teachers in nineteen states that are taking part in a new association between China's institute Hanban and the college Board, a non-profit organization that administers the advanced Placement examinations and SAT testing ). Plans are for an extra a hundred guest teachers across the U. S. by this summer and 250 by 2009. The partnership is part of China's large-scale effort to plug the Mandarin language and getting people in other nations 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 journeyed to China as a part of a Hanban program and was inspired to provide a course in Mandarin to his Seattle colleges students. He and Noah Zeichner, who heads up the highschool world language program, wished to expand the global focus in his Seattle faculty. They already have a student exchange program from Chongqing, China.
Zhu Dan teaches the Mandarin language in 3 Seattle colleges - Denny Middle, Madison Middle, and Chief Sealth high schools. While the institute Hanban pays her a stipend, the Seattle faculties provide housing, airfare and cover other costs. Dan is residing with Sealth teacher Frank Cantwell and his family.
Dan asked for the guest teacher program for 3 reasons - to improve her own English abilities, to help northern Americans understand more about China and its culture, and to help get the program started inside the Seattle schools. She wants to leave her students with enough awareness of the Mandarin language to survive a trip to her country.
Before journeying to the US and the Seattle colleges, Dan had to take a 14 day crash course in Beijing. It covered our culture and education system, our cash system, and how to write a check ( something rarely done in China ).
many of her Seattle faculties scholars took her course, as it sounded engaging. Others have chums or family members who speak Mandarin. Inside her first two weeks of instruction, Dan's Seattle schools 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 song'My Darlin' Clementine'. Additionally, Dan shares her Chinese culture with the scholars, making her classes even more engaging.
Besides the guest teacher program, many Seattle schools now are supplying instruction in Mandarin, as well as advanced Placement courses in Chinese and the AP testing that earns college credit for the Seattle schools scholars who pass. For this year, Dan's Mandarin class at Sealth school meets after school. It will be part of the ordinary, daytime curriculum in the fall. Principal Boyd is encouraging elementary colleges within his area of the Seattle faculties to apply together for a second guest teacher for the Mandarin language.
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