When President Obama welcomed Chinese President Hu Jintao to the White House on Wednesday, he was joined by a group of students from Washington, D.C.’s Yu Ying Public Charter School. It’s a Chinese-language immersion elementary school ”” the first in the nation’s capital and one of only a handful in the United States.
Interest in learning Chinese has surged in the past decade as American economic ties to China have deepened. A growing number of elementary and high schools are offering Chinese classes ”” though few teach it as intensively as Yu Ying in the northeast D.C. neighborhood of Brookland.
Housed in a former convent, the school’s 240 students alternate school days learning in entirely Chinese and English.
Read or listen to it all.
NPR–More Americans Learning Their ABCs In Chinese
When President Obama welcomed Chinese President Hu Jintao to the White House on Wednesday, he was joined by a group of students from Washington, D.C.’s Yu Ying Public Charter School. It’s a Chinese-language immersion elementary school ”” the first in the nation’s capital and one of only a handful in the United States.
Interest in learning Chinese has surged in the past decade as American economic ties to China have deepened. A growing number of elementary and high schools are offering Chinese classes ”” though few teach it as intensively as Yu Ying in the northeast D.C. neighborhood of Brookland.
Housed in a former convent, the school’s 240 students alternate school days learning in entirely Chinese and English.
Read or listen to it all.