The Chinese summer program Discover Chinese is approaching again after its first successful run last year. Discover Chinese will be held this summer at Choate Rosemary Hall and Glastonbury High School, both schools with prominent secondary Chinese language programs in Connecticut.
Discover Chinese is an intensive, four-week, non-residential course that will teach students to develop both speaking and writing abilities as well as an understanding of Chinese culture. The program will be completely free for the participants and includes classroom instruction as well as hands-on demonstrations and field trips.
Discover Chinese is a federally funded program meant to promote the teaching of critical languages. The federal grant comes from the support of four federal agencies: the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of State, and the Department of Education.
The government does not directly fund the summer Chinese program hosted at Choate; instead, the funding is routed to a program called STARTALK that is headed by the National Foreign Language Center which in turn funds the American Council on the teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). The ACTFL created and organizes the Discover Chinese program.
Choate Chinese teacher Carol Chen-Lin says that by the year 2010 the government will be providing 20 million dollars to the federal grant that sponsors Discover Chinese each year. The reason, according to Ms. Chen-Lin, is that exposing younger Americans to foreign languages like Chinese “will, in the future, improve relations with foreign countries like China by providing the younger generation with more opportunities of exposure to other cultures.”
Ms. Chen-Lin explained that Discover Chinese is different from the China Abroad program that Choate provides. Although both provide exposure to a different culture, the latter has more immersion and thus is a more in-depth and challenging course.
For this reason, a Choate student would not be able to jump levels by participating in Discover Chinese.
The Discover Chinese program is designed for students ranging from rising ninth graders to graduating seniors. The program lasts four weeks and consists of five days of lessons each week from 8:30 AM to 3:00 PM.
The program, however, is only for day students and does not include lodging. In addition, only forty scholarships are available. To be accepted to the program, students must secure applications from the ACTFL. This year’s deadline has already passed.
This Chinese program does not require prior knowledge of Chinese. Gabrielle Siegel ’10 was accepted into the program last year without having taken Chinese at Choate, and her involvement in the program sparked her interest in Chinese.
She said, “It [the program] was all very well organized: there were good textbooks, good workshops, and experienced teachers [who] cared a lot about the students.” She described the program as bringing together a wide range of people to absorb Chinese culture as well as studying Chinese language. “We played really fun Chinese games, did some calligraphy and watched a Chinese movie every day,” she elaborated. “Overall, I would definitely recommend [this program] to anybody who wants to learn Chinese and Chinese culture.” She added, “I would have gone again this year if I could.”
Mrs. Chen-Lin revealed a sneak preview of the theme of this year’s program: the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
