In this episode of Learning in Lake Oswego, we spotlight our district's expanding language immersion program, including the exciting addition of Mandarin Chinese to our curriculum. Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Schiele interviews special guests Noah Hurd, principal of Palisades World Language School and district coordinator for K12 Language Immersion, and Christy Appleberry, kindergarten teacher of the inaugural Mandarin Chinese class. Plus a few delightful kindergartners demonstrate their Mandarin skills through song. We explore the rewards and challenges of an immersion school and learn more about the Mandarin Chinese teaching methodology and student experience. All in time for registration and application openings for new students entering our district in the fall!
LOSD Kindergarten and New Student Registration
Palisades World Language School
Dr. Jennifer Schiele, Superintendent, LOSD
Mary Kay Larson, Executive Director of Communications, LOSD
Noah Hurd, Principal, Palisades World Language School, and Coordinator for K12 Language Immersion, LOSD
Christy Appleberry, Teacher, Mandarin Chinese, Palisades World Language School
Henry Wei-Li Burt, Nora Lin, and Brooks Scheinfeld, kindergarten singers
Welcome to Learning in Lake Oswego, a podcast providing educational insights for an engaged community. Lake Oswego School District Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Shealy will discuss what's important to our learning community. She'll be joined by experts examining various topics, answering important questions, and sharing upcoming events and activities you won't want to miss.
And now, it's your host. Lake Oswego School District Executive Director of Communications, Mary Kay Larson. Welcome to another exciting episode of Learning in Lake Oswego. I'm your host, Mary Kay Larson, with Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Scheele and our special guests. Today, we are spotlighting our Language Immersion Program and our new Mandarin Chinese offering.
Noah Hurd is with us. He's the principal of Palisades World Language School and the district coordinator for K 12 Language Immersion Programming. Also joining us is Christy Appleberry. She's a kindergarten teacher who is teaching our first Mandarin Chinese class in the district. Before we talk with Noah and Christy, it would be helpful for Dr.
Shealy to provide a brief background on our district's immersion program, how we got to where we are today. Why don't we first start with, if you would give us a history of the program. My pleasure. Good morning, everyone. Our first Spanish immersion cohort started with a kindergarten class at Lake Grove Elementary School in 2009.
That class actually just graduated from Lake Ridge High School last year in 2023. As the program grew, it was moved to River Grove Elementary, where it stayed until 2021. What happened in 2021? Well actually in 2020, I was tasked with leading the Spanish Immersion Task Force with teachers and parents in our community.
The committee's work resulted in several recommendations to the board, including hiring a coordinator to help guide the program and establish a permanent home for the program to meet the needs of the community. So in the fall of 2021, we opened the new Palisades World Language School, one of the only public world language schools in Oregon.
Pretty remarkable, and much has been accomplished in this short amount of time. I know at Palisades, we've reopened the school, we've started a second strand of our Spanish immersion program, and then we also launched our new Mandarin Chinese program. Yeah, we are so very proud of the Palisades community and grateful for our teachers, staff and families who have created this stellar learning environment for our students.
Every time I'm in the halls of Palisades, it just buzzes with language and culture. It is, it's really quite amazing. Well, I'm looking forward to learning more about it. I get a chance to pop in there every so often, but it's really nice to sit down with Noah and Christy today and get a little bit more of an inside view of what happens every day at Palisades World Language School.
So first up, we're going to start with Principal Noah Hurd to our program. Welcome Noah. Thank you. It's good to be here. Hi Noah, so great to have you on the show to answer a few of our questions. As the principal of Palisades World Language School, what unique challenges and opportunities do you encounter in managing a language focused educational environment?
Well, to start with the challenges, because we're an immersion program and, and the whole idea behind immersion is that from when they step into the school until when they leave. The idea is that they're being immersed in the language entirely, that for the entire day. And so backing up from that, I think one challenge as, as managers of this program is to think about how can we make this the most immersive program we can.
And so that steps into things like, what does the signage look like on the walls? When we're thinking about who we're hiring in the front office, not just the teachers, right? But, but every position in the building, we have to have that lens of language on. For every decision that we make entirely. So having that added lens, that added thought is, is a challenge, right?
As, as we think about how to manage a program. One of the great benefits, however, to the program is because of that, we've set up kind of a whole world of, of language where when kids step into our world at the beginning of the day, it immersive experience for them. And sometimes I joke that even if, if we weren't.
Quote unquote teaching immersion, just kids walking into the building and being in the building for, for a full day can't help but gain the culture and experience of, of our, of our environment. That's exactly how I feel when I'm in their nose. So that makes sense to me. Can you share a success story or a particular highlight from the school that exemplifies the impact of language immersion?
For me. Thinking about, and you all will have a chance to talk with Christy here in a minute, but thinking about our first assembly this year, we had the Mandarin kids coming in, one small class of kindergartners as you can imagine in an entire room full of kids who are in the Spanish program. So this kinder group is, is small by comparison, and there's a welcome song that our Spanish speaking students have all memorized and know and Traditionally, they've sung the song in Spanish.
They've sung the song in English. And the challenge for us was thinking through, well, how do we do this in Mandarin in a way that kind of fits in with the rest of the assembly? And I guess for me, my initial thought was I was, I was nervous, right? We had a group of small group of kindergartners coming in and a whole School of other kids and so we sort of just on faith did it we you know, we we translated the song into Mandarin the kids were taught the song in Mandarin and How the song goes so so they all come in they sing sing the song in English it flips the song is sung in Spanish and it's this big booming welcome song in Spanish and then It goes to Mandarin, and the whole gym goes quiet, and our small group of Mandarin kids just proudly belt out this song in Mandarin, and it was just such a beautiful thing, so I, I loved that, just, They are a fierce little group so, yeah, it, it went well.
What role do parents and the community play in supporting the mission of Palisades World Language School? I think they play a huge role. They, Well, let me first say as, as an administrator, I'm, I'm a big believer in the concept of community school anyway, and in any school I'm in, I think it's really, really important that we bring the community into the decisions and the conversation.
And. I can't imagine a place that's more true than in a language school where, you know, we have the kids during the day, but it's really, really important when, when they go home in the evening that we have the support of, of our community, that our community understands what we're doing so that they can support it.
And I, at our back to school night this year, I talked with our parents about this idea that of promoting. The concept that it's okay to make mistakes that we need to actually teach that as, as parents, because one problem we can run into with language learning is this idea that, you know, that we're trying to be perfectionists and that we're trying, that we kind of shell up.
Because we don't want to make a mistake. And that, that's very problematic, right? For, for our kids. So for the parents, they're the ones, ultimately, they need to understand that because they need to reinforce that at home as the kid comes home and they're saying, Oh, I was making mistakes or I didn't understand this or that.
It's so important that, that our community knows what the mission of our school, what we're trying to do, that they have kind of a vested interest in that so that they can then say to the kid that's part of the process. Right. Yeah, that's actually the learning process for what you just described.
Right, right. We have to all make mistakes in order to learn from them, so I love that you said that to all of our parents. How do you, how do you measure the success of the program, the Language Immersion Program, and then what have been some key achievements so far? There's different directions we can go with this question.
There is the kind of the brass tacks of measurement. We have a lot of assessments that we give, most of them in the spring. We have diagnostic assessments in English and Spanish that we're giving, and we're measuring kids in math and language arts. Those are one measure. We have a test that we're giving called the STAMP assessment from second grade through fifth grade, and we are giving that test annually, and that measures the four domains of Spanish.
It's a great assessment. Nationally normed, and really informative. Both for our parent community who's wondering how our kids are doing and for our teachers to give them some information. Those are sort of our, our more formal assessments. I'll also say though, anecdotally, there's a lot that we're doing to measure how kids are doing.
And I can tell you, for me, it's been a great ride because I've been at the high school for the last five years also. So I had the pleasure of working with our emerging kids at the high school. Yesterday I was at the middle school in an eighth grade. Spanish immersion class got to see how kids were doing.
And so there's, there's a lot of anecdotal measurement that we're doing as well. And I can tell you anecdotally, we're doing so incredibly well. It's so fun to sit. So yesterday in this immersion class, it was a social studies, Spanish immersion, eighth grade class. They were looking at the three branches of government and the teacher.
is teaching entirely in Spanish at a clip that's very, very fast. And the kids take it all in. They're doing turn and talks, and they're talking about the three branches of government in Spanish. And that is incredibly high level. That's not just, hey, how are you doing? So, there's a lot we can learn anecdotally about how the kids are doing too, and it's, all signs are, are very positive.
People are probably wondering like why would the principal at Palisades be going to the middle school or the high school? But I think and if I didn't say this I also wanted to make sure everyone knows that Noah serves as the k 12 district language immersion coordinator So it is part of his responsibility to check out those classes at the middle school and the high school And now that you brought that up, can you kind of talk a little bit about a typical path, you I know what it looks like K 5 and then they go to the middle school So what happens there and then what happens at the high school for students who are in the immersion program?
At the middle school for their three years, they're taking a Spanish literacy course. They are still in a cohort when they're there and they're doing that sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade. They're also taking a second Spanish course in social studies for those three years. One thing that we start to look at in middle school is where their Spanish level is at.
So kids do develop differently and at different, different rates. And so by eighth grade, There's a bit of differentiation in terms of the literacy course with level. And then as they step into the high school, we are, oh the other piece of this is, we are giving the stamp assessment as we go and kind of following teacher recommendation.
As they step into high school, they're taking a Spanish, typically taking a Spanish 3 or Spanish 4 course. They're also taking a Spanish Social Studies course. And that has been, for the last couple of years, which is a two year. looping course. They take it as a freshman and they take a different course as a sophomore.
They continue through Their Spanish trajectory through their senior year, that it will include Spanish, if they haven't taken Spanish three, Spanish four, AP Spanish. And we have a PSU challenge course also in Spanish and as seniors, they're taking a Spanish senior seminar course. The beauty of that course, that's kind of a capstone course and.
Part of that course is the kids coming back down to Palisades and working in a volunteer capacity in the classrooms supporting elementary students. So it's this sort of full, beautiful full circle that happens. So what you're describing would take a lot of collaboration, which is why there is this coordinator.
But is there any ways that teachers do that vertical alignment? Like, do they ever talk to each other at the different levels? They do. Yes, we, we come together. We're going to be coming together three times this year. We've, we've done it once already, and all of our Immersion teachers In grades 6 through 12 come together and sometimes we'll pull out an elementary teacher in there too.
And we have a lot of work to do. It's, it's not a small task. Aligning curriculum and aligning what we're doing 6th grade through 12th grade. putting together a handbook, talking about core standards for the courses that we're teaching. And as you know, a really important part of language is just like math, it, it builds on itself almost like a, like a Lego structure.
And if we're missing Legos, it's problematic. So that alignment work is, is really, really important. Fantastic. I'm so glad that we have you in the building to help with all of that you and your stuff. Teachers and staff and families have done such a wonderful job welcoming a new language and culture, so the Mandarin Chinese program, which has been a keen interest in our district for quite some time.
And as you know, Noah, one of the biggest challenges of starting a new program is finding those licensed teachers. teachers who are qualified to teach in a core language. So I was so delighted when we found not one, but two qualified Chinese language professionals who we hired both last year to work and build that program together, immersing themselves in the school and providing the necessary supports as they develop that new program.
And now Vicki teaches Chinese in our Midland High School. And Christy is our new kindergarten teacher. Christy, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me here today. Absolutely. Can you share your journey and motivation behind helping LOSD develop a Mandarin Chinese program in our district? So, starting in 2013, and I became a Mandarin immersion teacher at a private school in downtown Portland and where I learned everything about PYP and inquiry based learning.
And I taught there for about Eight years and eventually I got my master's degree and teaching license. And then I started to think, Oh, I should probably moving on to the, my next step. I've always know that I wanted to be part of the LOSD school district. Cause you know, it is one of the best school district in town.
And I was like, I want to work there one day. So. One of my student's mom actually was the one that who informed me that the school district was adding their mentoring immersion program and I was like super excited when I heard that I was eager to be part of it and to be honest and I was like, Oh, if I I'm going to apply for it.
I was excited and I felt very confident that Oh, you guys will hire me too. So and and interestingly, when I found out you guys are going to place that Mandarin immersion and then the Spanish immersion in the same school and then I was like over the moon because my previous job was having this like super rich language culture blending we got Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese in our school, and my previous job, and coming here to Palisades and going to another culture rich setting, it just felt like going back to home.
That's fantastic. How was that transition when you worked at Palisades for a year before officially starting the program? To be honest, I think a year of planning and stepping into a rare role. inside the school building and makes my first year of teaching in the school district remarkably smooth. We were being like the first year for teaching in a new environment.
It's a lot of difficulties for teachers. I think every teacher understand and knows that. So being part of the substitute teacher last year, not only building a strong connection for me and my school community, and also giving me a lot. Plenty of time to present the best itself of my students this year.
And also because I had that year last year, I was able to establish our mentoring curriculum program and then just ready to jump into year this year. And also being a part of the math adoption commit last year, it also makes my first year of transition of teaching is also very easy as well. So, as a Mandarin Chinese immersion kindergarten teacher, which is what you are, what unique teaching methods do you use to engage such young learners with a new language and a new culture?
Oh, no. I think, you know, picking up a new language. For me, it's not as easy anymore. But for my kindergarteners, they are actually, I have to say, they are rocking it. They learn every day. We engage in a lot of sound based learning. They eagerly to sing along with me every day. I have to say that we learned about 20 sounds already so far.
And then they pretty much know every single one of it. Learning Mandarin as a character based learning. A lot of picture find a lot of People find out it looks like a series of drawing or pictures. So I have been integrated a lot of activities for like the kids using coloring, painting, or using Play Doh to allowing them to use hands on activities while they're learning the characters.
I would say making characters learning an artful experience for my students. And makes them want to learn more and make them to enjoy the learning process. Many of our listeners have never been in a kindergarten classroom. So can you kind of describe that typical day? And then how do you keep such young children engaged and motivated all day?
I got a little four years old and then eight years at home. And then what I'm like doing with all the kids is finding their interests. And in my kindergarten classroom, our day is just full of fun. Playful learning and then also sounds and I love to hear when they singing and then they also learning from the language when they're singing the songs.
They like the rhythm, they like the movement, and then it's also a learning process for them. It's not just we are singing, but it's also a learning new language process for them to make them enjoy the learning process. It really warms my heart when every time my students were telling me that, Hey teacher, I can speak Mandarin.
You know what, teacher? I teach my parents to how to count in Mandarin. I teach my parents to sing the song. So they were telling me that they, the parents were saying that they are singing all day at home. They're even singing when they're showering. It's just, you know, when Yeah, the parents were actually saying, they're even saying they can hear them singing when they're taking shower.
I was like, that's cool. I love that. Because that's what I really want. I really think learning the language is not just learning the language itself. It's also be part of the culture. It's also be, be proud of what you are learning as well. So when they are super proud of what they are learning, they want to learn more.
That's what I'm always trying to create for them. I have a question. As you're talking, Christy, it just makes me think, I mean, kindergarten teachers, it takes an extra special person, you know, everything you learn in kindergarten, you learn in life, but it occurred to me as you're talking that you also have to be very comfortable singing.
Oh, yes! Did you expect that to be part of your skill set when you signed up to be a kindergarten teacher? Well, I'm not a good singer, but, you know, the kids don't care. The kids don't care. They like to hear you. Like, they like to hear you singing with them. They like to see you're enjoying having them.
Like, what we are modeling for them is what they see every day from us. So, it's like, I'm not a good singer. That's what I think. But the kids are thinking that I'm pretty good at it. I never did. The problem is I never hear myself singing. It's like they can't hear it. I never really can hear it. Speaking of song, I know we have some additional special guests here that are going to perform for us.
So let's listen to them shine for a second here.
Oh my gosh. That was amazing. Christy, can you tell us what students those were? Wei-Li, Nora, and Brooks. Thank you so much. Those students were fantastic. I just have one more question for you. It's a little connected to the song idea, but what other cultural elements do you incorporate into your teaching to give students that well rounded understanding of the Mandarin Chinese language?
Oh, that's a great question. You know what? Let me give you a great example for that question. So it's in the time back in September when the school just started, and we were celebrating our mid autumn festival. It's often called a moon festival, and we learned a story behind the festival first, and we learned a song together, and we were talking about the moon, and learned a song about the moon, and then The highlight was that I was involving the parents and then coming to my classroom and helping my students to truly understand the holiday and then the culture.
So how did I do it? I designed five different activity centers for them and I was using paint for art center. They were painting lanterns. It's part of the holiday, so they understand, oh, we were using lanterns. And then they paint lanterns. They also use Oreo cookies to represent each phase of the moon.
And then they were using, that was my science center. And then they were licking the cookie, the Oreo cookie, and then they were making the face of the moon. And then at my language center luckily I had another teacher that helped me to learn a poem about the holiday. And then the kids was just repeating after her, and then the kids was just learning with her together.
And I also did a math center. I got the students to count it and match the numbers with the correct Chinese characters. And all these are moon festival themed. And then they also did puzzles. So I cut some, a mooncake. I print out a big picture of mooncakes. I print out a big picture about a story of the moon.
And I cut them in pieces, and then the student put them together as a puzzle. And then the most fun center was actually the mooncake making and tasting center. And then the kids were using Play Doh to mooncake. To make moon cake, and they were like learning about the process, how to make a moon cake. They roll the dough and then they press it and they make it.
Finally, we got the kids to taste the moon cake. It's a really fun learning process for them to understand the language to learning about a math, to learning about a science, and then also to learn about. You know, how to work with, with their peers together. And then the most importantly is they were learning the culture behind the holiday.
That is so helpful for us to kind of see what a day in your life would be. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. I will say I, I live in the Palisades neighborhood and I hear from residents. all the time who are so happy that Palisades is reopened as a school, but not only as a school, they're very proud of the world language program and all that you all are doing there.
So not only do you have your families in the district, but you have residents whose kids have come and gone through our system and everyone's rooting for you guys. So I'm really excited for everything that's happening over there. Yes. Thanks again, Noah, Christy, and our wonderful students for joining us today.
As we talk about kindergarten, it's a great segue to where Jen will be this January. Yes, as the calendar turns to a new year, it signals that time to register your new student for the upcoming school year. It also is when each of our elementary schools host kindergarten counts. It's that open house for all incoming kindergarten families to meet their needs.
their principal, their teachers, and other families entering the school. And it's important to clarify all new students must register at their home school. Then if you're interested in this Spanish or Mandarin Chinese immersion kindergarten, you can apply for those programs. And I recommend doing both as soon as possible because we hold lottery spots in March for those positions.
So explain that. What do you mean by spots available? Kindergarten is the only grade in Lake Oswego with these hard caps on class sizes. So once spots are filled, kindergartners can be overflowed to one of the other elementary schools with capacity. If we do have to do that, we do provide transportation from your home to the new school.
And in the meantime, we watch enrollment very closely. Actually. daily. And if enough students enroll, it causes us to open up a new class and hire a new teacher. As you can imagine, we like to do this as early as possible so that we can make sure that all of our classes and our students and our families know exactly where they're going to be at the beginning of the school year.
Thank you, Jen. It is such a warm event. I still remember going to my kindergarten open house way back when and there's still people today that I remember we met for the first time there. So highly encourage parents to make their way to kindergarten counts if at all possible. So with this, we are a wrap for our show, but with all this talk of language immersion and world culture and learning new things, it's very inspiring.
And it's such a nice nod to our next episode, which is going to be focused on forecasting, which is educator speak for. Picking your classes for the next school year. It's a great process. There's a lot that goes into it, a lot to learn, a lot to be prepared for. So we hope people will tune in and learn a little bit more about it.
Students and families and residents alike. Thank you everyone for listening today until next time. Thank you again to the Palisades World Language Program. We're so proud of you and all the work you're doing and happy 2024 all. Happy New Year! We hope you found this episode informative and helpful. While our discussions are general, we understand each family's experience is unique.
If you have specific questions about your child, please contact your school principal. To learn more about the topics we discussed, ask a question, or share ideas for future episodes, please visit LOSDSchools. org. And remember to like and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for engaging with Learning in Lake Oswego.
We appreciate your support and look forward to having you with us for our next episode.