In 2004, Yong Zhao, University Distinguished Professor of Education at Michigan State University met Gilbert Choy, CEO of Sun Wah Foundation. Conversation led to Yong Zhao sharing his long-held desire to preserve the best of the Chinese culture, education, and language, systems he felt were losing ground to Western pedagogy. Gilbert Choy shared a similar concern but confessed that he was equally enamored with the creative aspects of Western early childhood education. Out of their exchanges with one another and diverse other professionals, 3e International Kindergarten in Beijing, China, was born. Starting with just 3 preschool children in the fall of 2005, the school grew quickly. By 2006, it had added nursery classes for children aged 18 months to 3 years, additional preschool classes for children 3-5 years of age, and kindergarten classes for children 5-6 years of age.
In developing a philosophy to guide 3e development, we recognize that increasing globalization and migration around the world dictates that we must take a visionary approach to education for these young 21st century learners. In response to that challenge, we determined that our mission at 3e is to develop critical thinkers and passionate learners who can move confidently and fluidly across cultures. At 3eik, we believe that will require that children spend time in a high-quality bilingual, multicultural learning community. Children from many different nations at 3e are immersed fully for half a day in Mandarin (the official language in the People¡¯s Republic of China) and in English for the other half.
Many of the children enter 3e speaking neither Mandarin nor English and must move through the predictable stages described by Tabors (1997) in learning a new language:
Stage 1: Home Language Use. At first, young children who are monolingual don¡¯t understand that others may not speak or understand the same language they do. They often continue to speak their home language and are confused when others do not respond to them.
Stage 2: Nonverbal period. This stage is the toughest. It begins when children realize that others are not understanding or responding to what they say. The result is a period of time where they stop using their home language in the setting, may begin watching others, listen more intently, and employ nonverbal means to communicate.
Stage 3: Telegraphic and Formulaic Speech. During this phase, children intentionally use solitary vocabulary words in the new language or put them together in short phrases or brief sentences. They frequently mix together words from their home language and the newly acquired language, ¡°code switching¡± back and forth between the two.
Stage 4. Productive language. The child begins to speak the new language relatively well, though sentences may be rather awkward and some words may continue to be used inappropriately.
We are intent on having children move more comfortably through this process, which can be highly stressful for them. Our observations tell us that it¡¯s a myth that second language acquisition is relatively easy for young children. For some, it¡¯s neither smooth nor swift. The fact that social interaction is absolutely essential to language learning (Vygotsky, 1978) has been borne out by documenting children¡¯s reactions to the various activities teachers have designed. We¡¯re convinced that creating the most meaningful activities for our bilingual classrooms requires that we keep in mind the following criteria:
1. Activities should help to develop pride and cultural identity in both languages being learned.
2. Children are more focused when classroom activities are engaging, meaningful, and useful to them personally.
3. Activities that elicit and encourage peer interaction are more highly effective.
4. Teacher collaboration, bridging and sharing activities across classrooms, helps children make meaningful connections between languages.
5. Careful, step-by-step sequencing of activities is necessary in order to build on children¡¯s previous knowledge and to advance skills and concepts (Soderman, Wescott & Shen, 2007). .
At 3e, our overriding goal is to help children move toward greater self organization and understanding of how to be successful in the social and cultural world in which they will live. This requires us to be sensitive to them as individuals, to help them learn to value and respect others, and to provide engaging, meaningful experiences so they can build skills in every developmental domain. We recognize that we need to also work closely with 3e parents on the multitude of ways in which they may continually support and evaluate their children¡¯s progress. If we do our job right, the children who attend 3e are more likely to grow into adults who have fewer biases against others who are different from themselves, and they will be prepared for the work and tasks they will surely have to accomplish in an exciting and new global era.
