Academics
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Bilingual Mandarin Education
Chinese Language Arts
Our Chinese Language Arts curriculum includes modern and classical literature, informational texts, and the foundational skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Topics integrate history, social studies, science, and technical subjects. Classical literacy is incorporated in all grades in a variety of forms to support students’ language and cultural understanding. In Middle School, Chinese Language Arts teachers systematically introduce classical Chinese literature to widen the scope of students’ Chinese language knowledge and advance their cultural literacy.
The Mandarin Chinese immersion program incorporates both content-based instruction (CBI) and thematic-based instructional approaches. The full early immersion model program that Yinghua adheres to was designed in consultation with the Center for Applied Linguistics and the University of Minnesota’s Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition. Yinghua’s program is internationally recognized as a dynamic example of language immersion best practices.
English Language Arts
Our English Language Arts curriculum aligns with the most current Minnesota State Standards for ELA. Through a lengthy exploration in the summer 2010, a curriculum team of ELA teachers at Yinghua examined United States and Minnesota state standards and updated our program to include guided reading groups based on students’ Lexile level, different types of writing embedded in content, based on Core Knowledge standards and Advanced Placement tests, and the Orton-Gillingham approach to introducing phonics and word exploration.
Our theme and content-based curriculum is integrated across languages and subjects, and embeds performance-based tasks for assessment. Our ELA teachers work with our Chinese teachers to synchronize their lesson plans, to accelerate the transfer of literacy skills students learn in both languages.
Cultural Education
Our cultural education curriculum prepares children to participate in a global community. The curriculum has been developed with the goal of helping our students to understand the people, customs, history and heritage of China and other world cultures. For example, our 1st Grade students explore ancient Egypt and contemporary Mexico (check our curriculum maps for more details by grade level). Our cultural curriculum includes school and classroom activities as well as community participation and field trips. In our Middle School, a three-year Global Citizenship Project is embedded in all content areas.
At Yinghua, we celebrate many traditional Chinese festivals to weave the culture into the curriculum throughout the year. Some may only be discussed in class, others are surrounded by large programs. These festivals include: Chinese New Year (Jan/Feb), Lantern Festival (Feb), Mid-Autumn Moon Festival (Sept), Double-Ninth Day (Oct).