Often students who take classes to learn a second language in school have two choices — Spanish or French. That isn’t so in the Hot Springs and Hot Springs Lakeside school districts.
At least one other language is offered in both school districts — Mandarin Chinese. Offering a language not traditionally taught isn’t the only difference, however. Mandarin Chinese classes at Hot Springs Intermediate, Hot Springs Middle, Lakeside Primary and Lakeside High School are done via digital learning in cooperation with the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts.
ASMSA offers the Mandarin Chinese classes are part of its Global Languages and Shared Societies Initiative through its outreach program. Students at the schools attend class using real-time compressed interactive video. It is a form of digital learning that allows students to interact with the teachers even though the teacher is not physically in the classroom with them.
ASMSA has offered the language course for five years. ASMSA has two teachers, one a permanent member of the school’s faculty and another faculty member on loan to the school through the Confucius Institute of Arkansas at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.
The UCA Confucius Institute exists to strengthen ties between Arkansas and the People’s Republic of China, enhancing mutual understanding of the respective cultures while promoting Chinese language and culture within the state.
One of the ways the institute achieves this goal in the “Teaching Chinese in Arkansas” program, which includes placing native-speaking Chinese teachers in Arkansas schools to teach the language. The teachers spend two years in the program before usually returning to their home.
Both of ASMSA’s Mandarin Chinese teachers came to the school through the institute. TingTing Tian is currently participating in the Confucius Institute. Yanxin Liu began working at ASMSA through the Confucius Institute before joining the faculty full time.
Tian and Liu split the classes between the two districts. For the students, it’s an opportunity to not only learn a new language but to learn it from native speakers — an opportunity that not many Spanish and French students often have.
Hot Springs and Lakeside district administrators say being able to offer Mandarin Chinese to the students is very important. The digital learning classes are an effective and affordable way to broaden their students’ educational opportunities.
At Hot Springs Intermediate, fifth- and sixth-graders have two 45-minute sessions a week. It is an International Baccalaureate program school, meaning students’ education has a global perspective. The school did have a full-time Mandarin Chinese faculty member at one time but lost the position. Becky Rosburg, the school’s principal, said without the digital learning opportunity through ASMSA, her students wouldn’t have the opportunity to take Mandarin Chinese.
Rosburg said she has observed students not only speaking but learning to write simple things in the language as well. One assignment included the students learning about their birth year. Rosburg said students often greet her in Chinese or try out new words they have learned in the class on her.
“It is digital, but it is a very hands-on, enriching, participatory class,” Rosburg said. “[The students] are engaged in the class. Some people may think all they do is sit at a computer, but whatever is being done on the
board the students are doing in the classroom, too.”
Rosburg said parents at her school have had very positive responses to the class and like that it is associated with ASMSA.
Linda Barrett, seventh-grade principal at Hot Springs Middle School, said she has enjoyed seeing the students’ interaction with the teacher during the times she is in the class. Students at the middle school take classes five days a week.
“I feel that it is an advantage [that the school can offer the language] since we are an IB school and our focus is on global education,” Barrett said. “Just the fact that we can share another culture with them — that’s an advantage for us.”
Meeting that global education mission fits in perfectly with ASMSA’s legislative mission. Providing these opportunities for districts that might not otherwise be able to offer such courses is important to ASMSA as well, said Corey Alderdice, ASMSA’s director.
While much of the attention the school garners is focused on the residential program for high school juniors and seniors from across the state, ASMSA has a greater overall mission, he said.
“ASMSA is unique among Arkansas high schools in our legislative mission to provide a variety of experiences through digital learning, out-of-school enrichment, teacher training and other avenues to improve the quality of learning for all Arkansas students. The GLASS Initiative is ASMSA’s way of connecting Arkansas students with the broader world while creating engaged global citizens,” he said.
Bruce Orr, assistant superintendent for the Lakeside School District, said having the option to offer the language via ASMSA’s digital learning program allow the district to meet the needs and wants of the students and their parents. The district doesn’t have enough students to offer the language with a full-time instructor within the district, but even if it did, good Mandarin Chinese teachers are “few and far in between,” he said.
Orr said the students have continually expressed that their classes through ASMSA are enjoyable. He said offering the Mandarin Chinese course in a digital learning format has been beneficial as well.
“We are hearing back from our graduates as they go to college classes that digital class offerings are picking up. This is a jump-start for our kids to help them at the next level,” he said.
For students and parents concerned about the quality of teaching in the class, Orr said digital learning classes face the same challenge as any class with a teacher physically in the classroom — good teaching.
“I think it goes to the elements of what makes a good teacher,” Orr said. “They need a clear and developed curriculum. They need an engaging format for the class, one that allows for a lot of participation, interacting with the teacher a lot.
“It’s not as easy to have a quality digital learning class, but [ASMSA’s] teachers have been able to accomplish that.”
To learn more about ASMSA’s digital learning options, including the GLASS Initiative and STEM Pathways programs, visit asmsa.org/outreach/digital-learning.