Elementary students get a jump learning Chinese
A year ago we showed you how Cheyenne High School was developing its own Chinese teacher in order to offer students a new foreign language. The school’s prinicpal sent the teacher to China, and she’s learning as she’s teaching the kids.Now that idea has developed even further. Starting this school year, future Cheyenne High School students can start learning Chinese in elementary school. And they can continue learning the language all the way through graduation.
It’s not a language most in this country would consider easy. In fact, it’s not a language most schools in Clark County even offer. “As far as I know there are no other elementaries with Chinese as a language,” Priest Elementary School teacher Robyn Covey told Kids First.
But at Priest Elementary, about sixty 4th and 5th graders give up their lunch period a few times a week to learn a language many believe will become vital.
“With Chinese it’s tones, so like if you say it one way you could say it wrong,” 5th grader Dani Spencer explains. “By providing this service we’ll actually be providing great jobs for these kids in the future,” Covey adds.
The emergence of China as a global power has schools all over the United States adding chinese to curriculums.
The 9 and 10-year-olds are soaking up not just a new language but culture. “They’ll come into my office all the time because they are researching China on the internet and they will have come in with new words,” Covey said.
Priest Elementary School actually had 150 kids who wanted to be in the Chinese Club. School staff hopes to expand the program next year.