In Conversation With
O
ne of the three keystones of the
Academy is Bilingual Immersion.
This is a language acquisition
pedagogical model that is held by many
linguists and academics as better, even
superior, in many ways especially for
scholastic education. The two languages
of the Keystone bilingual immersion
program are Chinese and English. So
this means that Keystone students do
not just learn Chinese and English, but
more to the point, Chinese and English
are tools used to teach subject content,
often referred to as contextualized
education. Language is not just another
subject that is taught in abstraction but
it is a medium that is used to learn – it
is not just learning language, but also
learning through language.
How Does the Immersion
Model Work?
Drawing from her experience in a public
school system in North California, Dr.
Chang explains how bilingual immersion
works. She unpacks a social studies
lesson plan on Native American History
and Culture for grade 3 that starts
in English, as translations of Native
American names are complicated. “So
when designing this curriculum unit
for the grade 3 students, it was decided
that the content would be taught in
English first,” says Dr. Chang. And
once the students are more familiar
with the content following field trips
and interviews, the next step is to teach
them these non-abstract concepts in
Chinese. “This is an advanced step as
culture steps in, and they can also learn
why people do things.” In the initial
stages of the immersion program, a
gradual process is required because
of the complexity of
English and
Chinese. These languages are made up
of different language building blocks.
For instance, Chinese sentences are
made up of characters, whereas English
sentences are made up of words. Each
language’s sentence structure is also
different. Students have to be taught
these building blocks until they can read
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The Keystone Magazine
at a universal level of understanding,
which is when they can comprehend
passages in both languages.
Dr. Chang notes that a universal
understanding capability can be
achieved at grades 4 or 5. In these
grades subjects are taught only in one
language. There is no repetition of
content. “Contextualized education
is related to children’s daily lives;
it is not abstract,” remarks Dr.
Chang. The beauty of contextualized
education is that students are learning
many things in an integral manner
– content, languages, culture, and
vocabulary comes with the languages
of instruction. Contextualized learning
happens in History, Math and other
subjects too (not just Social Studies).
Every subject has its own language,
vocabulary and culture.
Keystone’s
bilingual
immersion
program enables this and more. The
bicultural aspect stands out the most.
According to Dr. Chang, Keystone
provides unique pathways to developing
various forms of intelligence for
students, such as Music, Sports, Math,
Dance, Wushu and more. This is similar,
in many ways, to the six Confucian arts
– Rites, Music, Archery, Charioteering,
Calligraphy and Mathematics – which
we