The Wheatley School has joined a Long Island-wide trend in language education with the addition of a pilot program of Chinese language classes.
“The school board was interested in bringing in a non-Romance language,” said Joan Anderson, curriculum associate of foreign languages for the East Williston School District. “Because of the involvement in business that this community has, I think they realized the value of studying Chinese.”
Jenny Chao, who taught Mandarin at Great Neck South High School for the past five years, was coaxed out of retirement to help launch the program at Wheatley. She said most students taking the basic courses are anticipating the need to apply the language in business careers. But, she said, they are also enthusiastic to learn about Chinese culture.
“My students are very excited about it. They have a lot of questions about the culture,” Chao said.
Chao said the students had already talked about starting a Chinese club and taking a field trip to China.
The students, she said, also want her to teach them about Chinese cuisine. She plans to give them a cooking lesson, and she’s also teaching them a couple of contemporary Chinese tunes to sing.
But, she said, her immediate priority is to impart practical knowledge about the language.
“This year I’m going to focus on conversation,” Chao said. Included will be “survival” linguistic skills for being in a Chinese-speaking environment.
All the students taking the classes have mastered other foreign languages, and those Wheatley courses all include a cultural component.
“They’re used to a lot of cultural presentation in class,” Anderson said.
That included opportunity for a 10-day student exchange trip to Spain last year and a nine-day trip to Italy during the February break of the current school year.
For the first-year Chinese students, Anderson said, they’ll most likely take a field trip to Chinatown in lower Manhattan.
“I like the cultural aspects. It’s like a whole different world,” she said.
Having mastered Italian, Wheatley sophomore Anthony Graffigna said he’s also motivated to learn Mandarin for practical purposes.
“A lot of people have told me it’s the language to know in 20 years,” he said.
Wheatley junior Zack Kotin said he plans to major in business in college and appreciates the “practical” aspect of learning Mandarin.
Graffigna and Kotin both said the absence of the comprehensive tests they’ve faced a the conclusion of other language courses they’ve taken makes for a more relaxed classroom atmosphere.
Graffigna said the Chinese system of linguistic characters instead of letters presents a different challenge, but said “it’s not as difficult as you think it would be.”
Wheatley junior Samantha LaPera said she finds the Chinese language characters “really pretty” and said she’s motivated to learn Mandarin because there are so many people who speak it.
All of the students said they would consider taking more advanced Chinese language classes.
Chao said her students’ enthusiasm to learn the language is evident in their response to classes thus far.
“I really enjoy it and the students are eager to learn,” she said.
The level of interest among the 33 students in the first wave at Wheatley learning the language will determine whether advanced classes will be offered.
“This being a pilot program, we have to see what the level of interest is,” Anderson said.
Anderson said the school district has a “heritage” population of ethnic Chinese-American students, some of whom study Chinese languages outside of the district schools.
Anderson said the current Chinese language classes aren’t open to those students because the courses are considered too basic for them, but they will be eligible to take advanced classes at Wheatley if they’re offered.
