Education is becoming more personalized and nowhere is that more the case than in School District 43 (SD43) where dozens of students are doing at least some of their learning in Mandarin.
And this year, six students who started in SD43's Mandarin Bilingual program at Walton Elementary 12 years ago are set to graduate.
Mandarin Chinese is considered an extremely difficult language to learn for English speakers.
The writing system of characters is vastly different for anyone accustomed to the Latin alphabet and requires more memorization.
But for Kendra Lee and Abigail Chow, who have Chinese heritage but grew up in an English-speaking home, learning Mandarin was fun, as well as challenging, and a great way to meet friends and expand their horizons.
"I definitely learned a lot about my culture," said Lee, who plans to attend UBC to become a speech pathologist.
She has Chinese and Japanese heritage, but doesn't speak Mandarin at home. Now that she has gained confidence and proficiency, Lee said she is comfortable in speaking Mandarin in a social setting.
Chow, meanwhile, also plans to attend UBC after graduation, studying sciences and playing golf on the varsity team.
She told the Tri-City News learning to speak Mandarin enabled to her to connect with her family, who hail from Hong Kong, Yanping and Guangzhou.
"I can finally speak to my grandmother, which is amazing," said Chow.
The two were in Grade One when they started at Walton over a decade a year: the program now offers Mandarin Bilingual education to kindergarten students.
At first, it was difficult learning the characters, which is very different from learning the Latin alphabet. Math was also a bit of a struggle.
But the two teens said they loved story time with their teacher and over the years began to understand the sentence structure, how to read Mandarin and how to write some characters.
Through middle school at Scott Creek, they continued the program, with most of their courses in English and some in Mandarin.
At Gleneagle Secondary, from which they are graduating in June, they continued to study the language in Mandarin 11 and 12, as well as Asian Studies and in work experience through Health and Career Education.
Now the two teens are among only six students graduating from the Mandarin Bilingual program in the first cohort, according to their teacher Anne Lim.
"The group grows considerably after this group," Lim acknowledged.
According to SD43's website, the elementary program offers all students the possibility of completing 50 per cent of the prescribed B.C. curriculum in Mandarin and 50 per cent of the prescribed B.C. curriculum in English.
Subjects taught in English are:
- English language arts
- Social studies
- Science
- Fine arts
Subjects taught in Mandarin are:
- Chinese language arts
- Math
- Health and career education
- Physical education
As for the students, they are thrilled to be among the first students to graduate with the special distinction. But even more important is connecting with their family heritage.
"My grandmother is very proud," said Chow.
