Kindergartners learn Mandarin in Walnut Valley

The federal government wants kindergartners
to learn Mandarin. To accomplish this, it has given Walnut Valley
Unified a $1.2 million Foreign Language Assistance Program grant.

“The government saw a need for more language instruction,
especially in critical languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Russian,
Japanese and Korean,” Walnut program specialist Jenny Kwan-Hata said.
“So it decided to give school districts money to develop new language
programs.”

Walnut Valley calls its new program “Global Connections –
Creating 21st Century Biliterate/Bicultural Children.” The program’s
goal is to make students fluent in both English and Mandarin by the end
of the fifth-grade.

Learn more about the innovative class in Rich Irwin’s story Mandarin.