South Bay Chinese School

Our Mandarin Conversation 1 (MC 1) class is designed for students with no exposure to Mandarin Chinese. Its focus is listening and speaking. Our Mandarin Conversation 2 (MC 2)class is designed for students who have graduated from Mandarin Conversation 1. Its main focus is still listening and speaking, but also incorporates character recognition and some writing. It is intended for students who have no or little exposure to Mandarin Chinese at home. The Mandarin Conversation class uses material from Better Chinese http://www.betterchinese.com. My First Chinese Words is used for MC 1 and My First Chinese Readers are used for MC2.

In contrast, students in the core Chinese classes focus on reading and writing as much as listening and speaking. The curriculum is intended for heritage learners living in a household with native Chinese speakers. Students should be able to understand conversational Mandarin Chinese and speak at least some Mandarin Chinese. They advance throughout the curriculum with the same classmates from kindergarten to grade 8. The core Chinese classes use material from Meizhou Chinese http://www.mzchinese.net. In grades 6-8, the Integrated Chinese curriculum, which is used by the PVPUSD middle and high schools, is also used so that our students can comfortably take the Chinese placement test should they choose Chinese as their foreign language in high school. In grades 6-8, the students, parents and teachers in each class can decide whether to use Meizhou Chinese, Integrated Chinese, or a mix of both.

Motivated students who graduate from our Mandarin conversation classes can join the core classes when they are ready.