Pint-sized pioneers

With cities across the United States seeing their fortunes banking on an increasingly global economy, officials in Lorain, Ohio, aim to give their residents a very early jump on internationalization.

Their ambition: Get pint-size pupils fluent in Mandarin Chinese.

Early next year, the Lorain City Schools district will begin offering a "total immersion" program placing 15 children in an intensive Mandarin classroom taught by two instructors from Nankai University in Tianjin. The teachers are scheduled to arrive in Lorain on July 29 to begin a two-week course familiarizing them with American classrooms.

The voluntary program will place 4- and 5-year-old children in a classroom where Mandarin is the only language spoken, while teaching the same curriculum as regular classrooms.

Officials are heeding China's growing importance as an economic power.

"It's imperative to equip our students with skills to compete in the world economy," says Cheryl L.H. Atkinson, superintendent of Lorain City Schools, the prime architect of the effort.

While many cities across the United States are preparing for a global economy, few are doing so by targeting children so young.

"The 4- to 5-year-old time frame is very important because at that time their capacity to absorb is so large," Atkinson says.

The students will continue the program for three years before returning to the traditional school system.

"After that, it's their decision whether or not they want to continue studying the language" on their own, Atkinson says.

Introducing children to kindergarten is traumatic enough for some, and Atkinson concedes that, at first, the Mandarin immersion program will add an extra challenge.

"The first few weeks the children will cry. It will be difficult for them, but I think after six to eight weeks we will be amazed at how quickly they are learning," she says.

The school system of about 8,600 students will also offer Mandarin courses at the high school level. In fact, Atkinson made her decision to bolster language instruction two years ago, after recognizing that high school students need instruction in two languages in order to graduate with honors. At the time Lorain's schools only offered Spanish courses.

The Mandarin immersion program will be the first of its kind in Ohio, but it is based on similar programs across the United States.

Yinlee Eng recently finished her third year as the Chinese immersion lead at Potomac Elementary School in Potomac, Maryland, where she worked with students in a partial immersion program which splits the classroom time into half-English, half-Mandarin instruction.

Eng says the program is wildly successful. "We had fifth-graders running around the playground speaking Mandarin almost fluently," Eng says.

While the results can be promising, any success is based upon how seriously students take the class, says Eng, adding that school officials "really need to think about and plan the curriculum".

Atkinson and a small group of decision-makers from Lorain recently visited China to meet their future teachers and learn about Chinese culture.

Among the delegation members was Tony Dimacchia, vice president of the Lorain City Schools Board of Education. Dimacchia calls the immersion program the first step toward creating a stronger global presence in Lorain.

"We're doing in our school district what I think we should be doing as a city," Dimacchia says.

While much of the community supports the idea, a number of older community residents opposed it, stating that students should master English before moving on to another language.

Dimacchia addressed those naysayers: "Nobody in education likes taking risks, but we've taken several risks and we will continue taking risks.

"The immersion program is a risk well worth taking."

Home to more than 70 ethnic groups, Lorain wears the crown as "the international city" of northern Ohio. The language program is another way to celebrate diversity in an already diverse city, officials say.

Like cities and towns across the Midwest, the metropolis has been struggling financially. In 2005, a Ford plant, then a major source of jobs for the city of 70,000, shut down.

"We used to have a $38 million a year general spending budget, but now we have $28 million, and next year it will probably be a couple million less," says Mayor Tony Krasienko, who was also in the delegation.

When the local steel mill was in full production and the Ford plant still open, education wasn't as big a priority for residents, says Krasienko.

"It used to be you'd graduate from high school and go straight into working at the mills, but people can't really do that anymore," he says. "Right now we're behind the curve. We need to get ahead again and become the entrepreneurs of tomorrow."

Krasienko is using his trip to China to seek contacts and to establish Lorain as a future business partner with China.

In addition to increasing language appeal, Krasienko says he would like to see Lorain utilize its deep-water harbor on Lake Erie by becoming a transport hub and logistical center for commerce coming from China.

Krasienko says he would like to entice manufacturing for the medical and technology industries.

Instilling a sense of global engagement in Lorain's citizens - particularly its youngest ones - is the key to fulfilling that vision, officials say.

"Our job is to push our kids forward and get them prepared for a global economy, and I think this program can do that," Dimacchia says.

(China Daily 07/20/2009 page8)