About two dozen rising ninth graders who will attend Palo Alto and other neighboring high schools in the fall have been participating in a month-long immersion program in Mandarin Chinese language and culture using iPad apps. For the past four weeks, five hours a day, the beginning Mandarin speakers, who have elected to study Mandarin as their high school language next year, have been learning to read and write commonly used Chinese characters and becoming familiar with the complex tones and phonology of the spoken language.
“This program is designed to ‘front-load’ the students with the kind of preparation that will enhance their learning experience in the fall,” said DUARTE SILVA, director of Stanford’s California Foreign Language Project, which is co-sponsoring the program with the Palo Alto Unified School District.
“We believe that this experience will greatly increase their ability to learn Mandarin during the academic year,” said Silva.
Read the full announcement on the School of Education’s website.
