District assessing interest in Chinese language course
BY REBECCA MORTON Staff Writer
More than 50 students and parents from around the Freehold Regional High School District came out on Dec. 4 to listen to an information session on the planned offering of Mandarin Chinese language classes.

The presentation was held at Marlboro High School.

To kick off the information session, FRHSD Superintendent of Schools James Wasser gave a presentation about his recent trip to China. Wasser visited schools in China with other educators from the United States as part of an American-Chinese Bridge Delegation. The trip was sponsored and paid for by China's Language Council.

Wasser said offering a course in Mandarin Chinese is one of the high school district's primary goals. Classes will be conducted if sufficient interest is expressed.

The superintendent said there will need to be at least 30 students interested in one particular school in order to run the program. Thirty was the number chosen as some students may drop the class prior to the start of the school year. Wasser said it would not be cost effective to have classes with fewer than 20 pupils.

For example, if Marlboro High School has 30 students register for the Mandarin Chinese class, the course will be held at that school. If Howell High School has 10 pupils expressing interest in studying Mandarin Chinese, a class will not be offered until more students enroll.

Wasser showed photos of the schools he visited as he traveled in Beijing and through China's provinces, giving a glimpse of the Chinese culture.

"The most beautiful sight in China was the children I met," Wasser said, reflecting on the respect children have for their families and educators.

The superintendent said that perhaps the addition of Mandarin Chinese to the FRHSD curriculum would not only teach a language, but also some of the respect and values seen in China.

One person asked if Mandarin Chinese was added to the district's curriculum what foreign language would be removed.

Wasser said no other foreign language would be lost as a result of the addition of Mandarin Chinese, as district administrators are trying to encourage different languages at the schools since the area is so diverse.

To demonstrate the type of lessons that would occur in Mandarin Chinese classes, Lucy Lee, president of the Chinese Language Association of Secondary-Elementary Schools and Mandarin instructor at Livingston High School, was on hand with a presentation.

Lee expressed her excitement at the emergence of Chinese classes. She explained that Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world. In her presentation the instructor said China has 56 ethnic groups, the largest of which is the Han, making up 92 percent of China's total population.

There are seven major Chinese dialects, according to the presentation, including the wu dialect of the Shanghainese, the yu dialect of the Cantonese, and the min dialect of the Taiwanese. Each dialect has regional differences in pronunciation, words and grammar.

Mandarin Chinese, however, is the most common language across the ethnicities and dialects in the Chinese-speaking world. Lee explained that Mandarin is usually perceived by westerners to be a difficult language, but pointed out the aspects that make the language easy.

There are no verb conjugations, no noun-adjective agreements and no articles such as "the," "a" and "an," she explained.

Getting those present to participate, Lee gave a lesson in numbers, weekdays, months and common greetings.

Pin Yin is the use of the Roman alphabet, instead of Chinese characters, to express the basic phonetic elements of the language. This will be used to help with pronunciation. An example of Pin Yin is zài jiàn, which means goodbye.

Lee explained that there are four tones in the pronunciation of Chinese words, which can be determined by the accent marks above letters. She said pronouncing the correct tone is very important as a person could be trying to say, "I ask you," but by changing one tone the words could come out saying, "I kiss you."

A short quiz was given to the audience members, asking them to match Chinese characters with their meanings. The characters are evolved pictographic characters, Lee explained. The instructor said there are 5,000 to 6,000 characters in the written Chinese language but noted that a student need not know all of them.

At the conclusion of the meeting Lee answered questions posed by parents. She explained that as with all languages the basics of objects that relate to the student would be taught in the first year. The instructor said it takes a long time to become fluent, noting that earlier instruction prior to high school helps. Lee said if a student took Mandarin Chinese for all four years of high school, he should have a working knowledge of the language that would get him around China.

Anyone with questions about foreign language may contact the World Language supervisor at each high school in the FRHSD.