Elmbrook to add Chinese classes

The Elmbrook School Board on Tuesday approved the district's proposal to add Chinese Mandarin I and II in high school.

The approval was the first step toward developing curriculum and schedule. Classes could start in fall of 2012.

The district proposal said the courses would provide opportunity to learn the language of one-fifth of the world's population.

"The state has encouraged districts to offer emerging languages such as Chinese, Japanese and Arabic," said Melanie Stewart, director of assessment and student learning. "The word is out, and we have had interest from people who are interested in teaching"

In fact, interest in offering Chinese in the district can be traced back to at least 2010.

Superintendent Matt Gibson was among a dozen state school leaders who travelled to China with representatives from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. According to Gerhard Fischer, a DPI consultant for international and world languages, the trip sparked an interest in cultural exchange, including the opportunities to extend Chinese to American high school foreign language instruction.

Two teacher sources

He said matching the needed instructors with a growing interest in Chinese can come from two sources.

One includes a pool of teachers coming out of Hanban, China's national office for teaching Chinese.

"Teachers come to the U.S. from China for one to three years to teach in American schools," Fischer said. "Another way would be a more home-grown approach with teachers who are already Wisconsin residents."

That approach would utilize the individuals who were educated as teachers through a federal Foreign Language Assistance Program grant that just ran out this past year, according to Fischer.

Key to future jobs?

"There is a great deal of interest across the state to add languages based on a new economy and Chinese certainly fits that," Fischer said, adding that learning a language may help future employment, but it is not an absolute certainty.

"International employers send employees all over the globe," he said. "Still, Chinese has emerged as an important global language."