Rosenbusch, colleagues develop model for teaching Chinese to American youth

A former resident of Argentina and fluent speaker of Spanish is helping to promote learning of the world’s most frequently spoken language, Mandarin Chinese.

 

Marcia Rosenbusch, an adjunct associate professor and director of the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC) at Iowa State, is working with the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Applied Linguistics on a project to develop and expand the teaching of Chinese to American children in kindergarten through fifth grade.

 

“One of the goals of the Language Resource Center is to work with the least commonly taught languages,” Rosenbusch said. “Chinese is one of those.”

 

While Chinese has been rarely taught in the United States, China’s size and increasing importance has furthered interest in the language. “I think there is an awareness by most people that Chinese is a good language to learn,” Rosenbusch said. “The federal government has recognized Chinese as a ‘critical need language’ and has made funding available for Chinese programs K-16.”

 

Rosenbusch and her colleagues are writing curriculum that includes a new language model, which they are now sharing with other educators. The model, which will serve as the foundation for future foreign language programs, is being practiced in two Midwestern school districts. “We believe that a long-sequence of instruction – where each level builds on the level before it – is the best way to go,” Rosenbusch said. “Without it, you cannot get to the higher levels of ability in the language.”

 

The model is part of what Rosenbusch sees as a change in the approach to foreign language education in the United States. “What has typically happened is that what’s taught in elementary school is re-taught in middle and high school, and those kids get to college and it’s re-taught again. So they never progress,” she said.

 

Rosenbusch hopes to change this by adjusting the focus on translation, memorization and conjugation that still persists, particularly at the higher levels of education. “Those are tools that will help. But if you only know that, you’ll never be able to communicate,” she said. “Communication is what language learners really want to be able to do with a second language. Therefore, it is the heart of what we’re teaching.”

 

The K-5 Chinese curriculum was built through a process called backward design, which began with a fundamental question posed by Rosenbusch and her colleagues: “What do we believe that students need to know and be able to do?” They developed conceptual themes for fifth graders and worked backward to kindergarten in a method similar to reverse engineering. “I was talking with an architect and he thought it was quite interesting, because that’s how they [construct] buildings,” Rosensbusch said. “They develop complete plans before they ever begin construction.”

 

The NFLRC will soon begin to evaluate students’ progress in research critical to the project. “We will assess English-speaking students’ Chinese proficiency at the end of this year using the SOPA (Student Oral Proficiency Assessment) and will continue assessing their progress annually,” Rosenbusch said. The project is slated to continue until 2010, when Rosenbusch hopes to receive additional funding for further long-term studies and evaluation.

 

That research examines more than proficiency. “We expect that students in the schools receiving language [programs] will have more positive attitudes toward other cultures and people who speak other languages than those who don’t have those opportunities,” Rosenbusch said. “That’s really important in Midwestern states, where in many locations children do not have opportunities to interact with people from other cultures.”

 

The project is promoting the concept of partner schools as a means by which to foster an international perspective. “There is strong interest in building understanding of the world from an early age, so sharing photos and artwork with partners in China helps to make real the fact that children around the world also go to school and participate in the same activities we do,” Rosenbusch said.

 

After spending eight years in Argentina, Rosenbusch recognizes the importance of location to her work. “With my roots in Iowa, it’s particularly exciting … because I’ve had opportunities to live in another country and experience another language. Many people don’t have that,” she said. “This is an exciting part for me personally, to have the opportunity to help children in the Midwest learn other languages and learn about other cultures.”