Casper Elementary School Is Only Public School In State To Offer Mandarin In Dual Language Immersion

CASPER — At a recent Paradise Valley Elementary School open house, Michael and Ruth Capshaw, and their 4-year-old daughter Lyra were excited about the potential for her to start learning to speak Mandarin.

They were greeted by native-speaking Chinese teachers in the immersion classroom and on the walls were Chinese characters next to words and cartoon graphics. A crafted Chinese dragon model sat on a top of a bookcase.

The Casper elementary represents the only public school in Wyoming that gives parents an option to have their child taught Mandarin in a dual-language immersion setting where students spend half the day learning the language and the other half in English.

The program can be traced in part to a U.S. Department of Defense grant and has been in place since 2013. Those initial kindergartners who helped debut the program are now juniors in the district.

Thea True-Wells, a Natrona County Board of Education trustee and parent of four children who have been part of the Mandarin program, advocated for the program 12 years ago. As a parent, she believes the program remains a worthwhile investment for the school district despite struggles finding teachers or any current concerns about national geopolitics involving the U.S. and China.

“I really do believe it is an exceptional education,” she said. “As you can imagine, trying to learn a language where very few people speak it in our surrounding community is very difficult.

“Where it fits in our state's educational dialog is ever evolving, but in terms of getting kids to do hard things, learning Mandarin in a DLI format has been an exceptional opportunity.”

Immersion Process

The district also offers a similar immersion program in Spanish as do schools in Albany, Campbell, Laramie and Teton counties. But Natrona County School District’s immersion Mandarin option is one of just 367 Mandarin DLI schools nationally.

Natrona County School District Director of Differentiation and Early Childhood Valerie Brus said the district offers many options in the languages that are offered. Students outside of the immersion program in later years have a choice of Russian, German, Japanese and others as well as sign language.

Both the Mandarin and Spanish immersion language programs are set up so kindergarten through third-grade students initially do math and science content in the target language for half their school day. Children take English Language Arts, social studies, and additional math content the rest of the day. In fourth grade, math studies are taught in English and students start to learn how to read and write in the target language.

“(That) hasn’t really been the focus kindergarten through third grade because we really want them to be able to read and write in English and have that proficiency first before moving to the target language,” Brus said.

Once students in the program leave the elementary for middle school, the immersion concept segues to sequenced language and literacy education and elective culture and media courses.

“At the high school they are no longer considered dual language immersion students,” Brus said. “They are just considered world language students.”

Depending on a student’s desire and abilities, former DLI students can go on while in high school to take college courses at Casper College or the University of Wyoming.

Seal Of Biliteracy

At the Wyoming Department of Education, spokesperson Linda Finnerty said school districts are free to set up their language curriculum and language choices as long as they meet minimal state standards. One thing the state offers students at graduation is a “Wyoming Seal of Biliteracy” if they show proficiency through assessment on English and another language.

True-Wells said she knows some students who began in the Mandarin program who are now taking Spanish classes and are hoping to graduate with double honors in the “Wyoming Seal of Biliteracy.”

For the Capshaws, getting their 4-year-old enrolled in the Mandarin immersion program gives their daughter “an extra curriculum to stay focused and have a little better mindset.”

“In the future this is going to be amazing for her,” Michael Capshaw said. Ruth Capshaw said the couple chose the Mandarin immersion program over Spanish because their daughter likes the Asian culture in her YouTube choices.

“She has a thing for Asian culture. Sometimes she tries to copy some of the shows she watches in different languages and Chinese is one of them,” Ruth Capshaw said.

True-Wells said the DLI students can take a placement exam at the end of eighth grade. Her children did. Depending on their results, the exam can be the ticket that allows them to start taking college Mandarin classes as a freshman in high school.

Natrona County students do well in speaking and listening, True-Wells said, but the University of Wyoming program director found they needed some additional work in writing and grammar and created course work for students as a next step at the university.

True-Wells said her son has moved on to taking a University of Wyoming business class in the Chinese Language program designed for university juniors and seniors. Students have to analyze the business plan of an American corporation that expanded into the nation.

Mandarin Language Opportunities

University of Wyoming Chinese Program Director Yan Zhang believes Mandarin remains an important language choice for American students like those in Casper who want a role in the global scene. While English likely will remain the primary global language, she points out that Chinese is one of six official languages at the United Nations.

Yan noted China continues to grow in significance on the world stage and job opportunities for graduates in her program are “bright” in areas such as business, diplomacy and education.

Both True-Wells and Yan believe learning Mandarin involves more than the listening and speaking.

“It is also about understanding the culture, history and ways of thinking,” Yan said. “This plays a significant role in cultivating global awareness and cross-cultural competency for our students.”

True-Wells said the root of the Natrona County Public Schools choice to begin its first immersion program in Mandarin can be traced to a U.S. Department of Defense STARTALK grant in 2011. The grant encouraged schools to teach languages that were a focus of the National Security Language Initiative. In the summer of 2011, Casper students in first through fifth grades were offered half-day, one-week sessions of Mandarin.

Then Natrona County Schools Director of Teaching and Learning Vicki Foster was quoted in the Casper Star-Tribune on May 6, 2011, as saying district officials visited the immersion program in Utah and saw the benefits of a DLI program that would not only provide language skills but also help with problem solving and reasoning.

“We’re exploring all kinds of ways to make our students more globally competitive,” Foster said at the time. “The competitiveness isn’t just globally, it’s locally.”

Language Learning ‘Incredibly Valuable’

More than a decade later, True-Wells said she has witnessed the benefits in her own children through trips to Taiwan and China. She believes whatever the language, Spanish, Mandarin or another, learning a second language opens a door to the culture where the language is spoken and broadens a student’s perspective.

“I think it’s not only their ability to speak it, but I think it’s the understanding that there are other places in the world that do things differently,” she said. “I think that it is incredibly valuable to not constantly be having to reference things through your own point of view. You can reference things through other people’s point of view.”

For Wendy Nikkel of Casper who also visited Paradise Valley Elementary’s open house, the Mandarin program could open doors. She thinks a second language would definitely benefit her daughter, Ava, 5.

“I think too many people don’t know a second language,” she said. “I think it is a good program for kids and developmentally it probably helps them. I’d hope she could use it. I think Wyoming might be limited on Chinese possibilities, but you never know where life will lead you.”

Nikkel said she hopes a foundation in Mandarin would lead her daughter to enjoy languages and maybe learn another one in the future.

“She could do that later in life if she chose,” she said.

Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.