Batesville Community School Corporation began Indiana’s first Chinese Dual Language Immersion (ડીએલઆઈ) Program during the 2016-17 શાળા વર્ષ. The DLI program began with kindergarten students in 2016 and expands to the succeeding grade level each year.
ડ્યુઅલ લેંગ્વેજ નિમજ્જન પ્રોગ્રામ શું છે?
In a Dual Language Immersion program, students are taught Indiana standards in two languages, both their native language (અંગ્રેજી) and the target language (Chinese). Students learn the same standards-based curriculum in all content areas that non-immersion students follow in any other classroom.
Batesville Community School Corporation will continue with a full immersion model with increased Mandarin Literacy for Kindergarten students during the 2024-2025 શાળા વર્ષ. First grade will transition to the full immersion model during the 2024-2025 શાળા વર્ષ. This model will soon replace the current 50/50 model as students progress through elementary school. In this model, students have one Mandarin Chinese teacher who is responsible for the delivery of all instruction within all content areas. Batesville Community School Corporation currently uses a 50/50 model in grades 1-3 (will be grades 2-3 in 2024-2025), in which students spend half of their school day in Mandarin Chinese and the other half-day in English. Students in the 50/50 model have two teachers, one who teaches exclusively in Mandarin Chinese for half of the day and one who instructs in English for half of the day. In 4th grade and above, models adjust slightly to meet the needs of the students in the DLI program.
Why begin a second language in kindergarten?
Kindergarten aged students are developmentally ready to learn languages. A child has twice as many synapses (connections) in the brain as an adult. Young students must use these connections or lose them. There is a window of opportunity in which a child learns languages easily. After this period, the brain becomes slowly less receptive. With the typical model of waiting until students are in middle school or high school to learn a second language, it is more difficult to acquire a foreign language. In a Dual Language Immersion program, students not only learn to speak Chinese, but they will be reading and writing in a second language.
