Welcome to the CHINESE Language Program at Diamond Path
Jon Pan - Chinese Language Specialist
Starting fall 2007, Diamond Path Elementary offers Chinese to K-5 students who have chosen Chinese as their language of choice.
The advantage of learning a foreign language at a younger age is tremendous. It is especially important for native English speakers to start to learn Chinese at an early age. At Diamond Path, we follow the five goals set by the National Foreign Language Standards: communication, cultures, connections, comparisons, and communities. The students will develop strong skills in both Chinese listening and speaking. In addition, they will learn Chinese history, geography, traditions, and culture which include Chinese songs, music, dance, calligraphy, Chinese chess, paper cutting, and paper folding etc.
Our teaching philosophy is that students learn Chinese by doing engaging activities in simulated and/or natural settings. Our curriculum will be aligned with the Minnesota Department of Education Chinese Language Programs Curriculum developed in April 2007.
Diamond Path will be one of just three schools nation-wide to participate in the Kindergarten Chinese Program as part of the Chinese K-5 FLES Project run by the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center at Iowa State University and the Center for Applied Linguistics at Washington D.C.
The goal of the project is to improve and expand the teaching of Chinese at the K-5 level by establishing the basis for an articulated, long-sequence model, and conducting research on the implementation of that model. We are very excited that our program will be part of this national project from its very beginning, which will certainly lead to a great start for the Chinese Program at Diamond Path.
There are only a few K-5 Chinese Programs in Minnesota schools including some elite private schools, and we are one of them! This is due to the strong support and great vision of the parents in the community, the superintendent of ISD 196, and the principal and the whole staff at Diamond Path.