Montclair Receives $1.3 Million Federal Grant To Boost Teaching Of Chinese

Foreign language instruction will fade away in many Montclair schools this fall - except when it comes to Mandarin.

U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-8) announced Friday a $1.3 million U.S. Department of Education grant for the Montclair Board of Education's five-year project to expand teaching of Chinese through the district's elementary and middle schools as well as the high school. This program, which will be developed with the help of Rutgers University, will connect the study of the language with the study of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Mandarin will be taught in Nishaune and Hillside elementary schools and Glenfield Middle School. Mandarin instruction will reach Montclair High School in the 2011-2012 school year, said Felice Harrison, a spokesperson for the Montclair School District.

"This interdisciplinary approach to teaching language will better prepare today's students through a more dynamic and engaging learning experience," said Pascrell, a former high school history teacher of 12 years. "This will help our future generations maintain the nation's place of leadership in the world. But more importantly, it is my hope that our students will develop a greater understanding of eastern cultures. Through their study of the Mandarin language, they will be that much more capable of sharing their talents and abilities with as many people in the world as possible."

"This is really very, very good news in a tough economy," said Dr. Frank Alvarez, schools superintendent for the Montclair School District. "Montclair has been very committed to the study of Mandarin, attracting about 250 students in the past two years. Our goal is to grow the program and make it available to more students in grades K through 12."

"During a difficult budget season this past spring that resulted in some very deep cuts, our Mandarin language program survived.  We view the understanding of China and its role in the global economy as an essential 21st century skill--certainly knowing its language helps with cultural awareness and communication," Alvarez continued. "The award will enable us to partner with Livingston Public Schools and Rutgers University in what should prove to be a dynamic relationship that can serve as a model to others. We are very appreciative of receiving this award and of the support from Congressman Pascrell's office."

The first grant of $253,000 has been awarded to the Montclair Board of Education for the 2010-11 school year. The grant will be renewed annually for the following four school years.

The first year of the grant will be spent organizing and planning for the curriculum units for the teachers.  The next year will involve pilot testing these newly developed content-based units in grades 3, 6, and 9.  The following three years will continue the creation of content-based units until they are a part of the Chinese curriculum in all grades 3 to12.

Beginning in third grade, students will combine their knowledge of Chinese with their knowledge of science and mathematics.  As their Chinese education progresses through the higher grades, the engineering and technology content will be added to their study of the language.

Teachers will coordinate with the Rutgers School of Education to learn how to develop theme-based units that center around science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  Over the course of five years, content-based curriculum units will be developed for grades 3 to12.    

Lucy Lee, lead teacher in Chinese at Livingston High School and a nationally recognized expert on the teaching of Chinese, will assist teachers as the program is expanded into Montclair High School.

The overall goal is to create a curriculum that can be replicated throughout the state with Chinese as well as other languages.

Yet the teaching of other foreign languages in Montclair is on the decline.

Although there will be at lesat three Mandarin teachers in the elementary and middle schools in Montclair, there will only be one ESL teacher in the elementary schools, and there will be an overall reduction in teachers of langauges besides Mandarin.

With Gov. Chris Christie slashing public education funding to unprecedented levels—eliminating 60.1 percent to Montclair—it's no surprise that at least some adjustments would have to be made to the World Language Program during the 2010-2011 school year.

In all, there will be 96 fewer employees in the district next year with a total of 34 teaching positions being cut. All told, the cuts will save the district a total of $7.1 million in spending. The 2010-2011 buget, totaling $110.5 million, reflects the historic drop in state aid to Montclair.

Indeed, most of the World Language teaching positions at the elementary schools have been eliminated for the coming year, according to the school district. Only at Nishuane and Hillside elementary schools will Spanish and Mandarin instruction continue to be delivered by teachers. Other schools will rely increasingly on specialized software such as Rosetta Stone, a popular language-learning computer program.

Montclair administrators point to research indicating that instruction delivered via technology has proven as effective, if not more so, than traditional classroom teaching. Technology that students can access both in school and at home will allow instruction to be delivered more frequently than in-class teaching, which by law must be balanced with a certain number of required instructional hours in other subject areas. Education experts believe that frequency of exposure to a new language is the key factor in really learning it, especially for young children; as such, technology has the advantage of being available every day, at any time.

But many Montclair parents are concerned about the decline in language instruction including Jessica Henry, a Northeast Elementary School parent who is worried about the cutbacks.

"I really think that in the Northeast [part of the United States] Spanish is a second lanaguage and it's critical for our students to be able to speak it," she said. "The bottom line is that children who learn Spanish at an early age retain an aptitude for language at an older age."

Like many parents, Henry argues that language learning has to be interactive.

"The role of a classroom teacher is to facilitate that interaction by engaging students in dialogues, identifying areas of weakness, and enabling students to re-think or more readily understand concepts by using a variety of teaching modalities—a flexibility and sensitivity that cannot be shown by a program based solely in tehnology-based teaching," she said.

Some parents also are concerned that there will now only be one ESL teacher shared by both Northeast and Edgemont elementary schools instead of two as was the case this past year.

But Jean Wuensch, supervisor of curriculum for the Montclair School District, said it doesn't appear that having only one ESL teacher for the two elementary schools will cause a hardship.

"At this point would I say it's doable? Absolutely," she said.

Wuensch said that there were betweeen 42 and 45 ESL students in the whole district at both Edgemont and Northeast, as well as at Mount Hebron and at Montclair High School. Both Mount Hebron and the high school each have their own ESL teacher.

Wuensch said that, despite parents' concerns, the foreign language program at the three middle schools and at the high school will not be impacted next year. She agreed, though, that the elementary school children will most likely have to rely more on creativity and technology than any teacher-led training.

And an emphasis on Mandarin is definitely on the rise.

"The Mandarin teaching team feels extremely honored to serve the Montclair student community," said Vicky Chang, Mandarin teacher at Nishuane, which is the home base of the Montclair Mandarin program. "We are looking forward to another great school year."

Montclair's not unusual in its interest in Mandarin. Rough estimates show that as many as 1,600 American public and private schools are now teaching Chinese across the country, as opposed to only 300 a decade or so ago.

Experts say the reasons behind the surge are varied. Many have begun recognizing China as a vital world power and believe students will have to learn the language in order to succeed in their careers as adults.

Mayor Jerry Fried took a trip to China in mid-May and just this week Montclair is hosting dozens of Chinese students and teachers as part of a cultural exchange program.

Meanwhile, schools interested in teaching languages besides Mandarin will simply have to become more creative.

Dr. Barbara Weller, principal at the Charles H. Bullock Elementary School (formerly Rand Elementary School), said that her school was the only building without a dedicated world language teacher last year and so the school created a unique program with professional assistance so that every child was introduced to Spanish.

Indeed, music teacher Lourdes Armada taught Spanish through music and the school performed its spring concert entirely in the Spanish language.

"We can't do exactly the same next year—too many sections to cover," Weller said. "The teachers are committed to ensuring that all kids get language at least once a week (as was done this past year) and we're expanding it into periodic Morning Meetings en español."

Weller said that the district is proposing the use of software but a final decision has not yet been made.

Many elementary schools say they are contemplating offering Spanish and other languages as an after-school enrichment program, perhaps with the assistance of PTA funds.

In the end, Wuensch emphasized that high school students would still be able to take Latin, French, German, Italian, or Spanish.

"We're still in the process of working out world languages," she said. "Nothing has been completely finalized as of yet."