Paint Branch Elementary Says 'Ni Hao' to New Chinese Language Lab

This year’s kindergartners may be tomorrow’s international businessmen and women, thanks to a newly expanded Chinese immersion program at .

The school recently expanded its program to include a Chinese language lab, funded by a $35,000 grant from the Maryland State Department of Education, which covered technical equipment, resources, staff development and training. 

At a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday morning, teacher Katherine Chang demonstrated how students in three kindergarten classes will use the lab to practice their Chinese vocabulary: They’ll listen to Chinese language through headsets while watching supplementary video, then repeat what they hear.

After just two weeks of vocabulary introduction, the students’ science lessons will be taught entirely in Chinese, Principal Jay Teston said. Each year, an additional class will be taught in Chinese, starting with math in first grade.

The language lab builds onto a program that was started in 2008 through a partnership with the University of Maryland. In addition to language, students are exposed to Chinese customs, culture, ethics and philosophy. Paint Branch is the first school nationwide to offer a Chinese Immersion Program through the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) program.

The immersion in kindergarten builds a foundation for many years of Chinese language study, Teston said. Sixth graders at Paint Branch take Introduction to Chinese—a prerequisite to Chinese language classes in seventh grade. If the students continue learning Chinese through middle school, they will be ready for college-level Chinese by ninth grade and eligible for a study abroad program to China by their junior or senior year of high school.

The state grant also allows students to regularly video chat with students at their sister school in China—Nankai University Elementary School, where they are learning similar lessons about the United States.

Perhaps the most important part of the program is that the students are using technology to teach each other and learn together, according to UMd. Vice President of Administrative Affairs Robert Specter.

“Teaching—at the early opportunity—our languages to each other, our cultures to each other, to bring long lasting peace to our nations,” Specter said.