May 15, 2024
A third study based on student data from Yu Ming Charter School was just published by a research team from the University of Washington, further showcasing the efficacy of Mandarin immersion in general and Yu Ming’s model in particular, and growing the research base on how Mandarin immersion closes opportunity gaps and boosts academic outcomes for all students regardless of their backgrounds.
The study, “Narrative Skills in Mandarin–English Dual Language Immersion Learners,” looks at narrative language development at pivotal periods of learning, in first, third, and fifth/sixth grades. Students were given wordless picture books and asked to tell stories. The study found that certain aspects of Mandarin narrative skills were as strong for non-Chinese heritage learners as Chinese heritage learners by 1st grade. This is remarkable given that only 20% of incoming kindergarteners at Yu Ming have Mandarin as their home language–80% do not come in with any prior Mandarin background.
It also showed that students did not fall behind in English because of time spent on learning Mandarin–on the contrary, aspects of Mandarin narrative skills supported their English narrative skills, showing that learning a complex language like Mandarin first can support English literacy.
These findings are in line with Yu Ming’s internal assessments which show that, while students represent 28 different home languages, and learn in a 85/15 immersion model from K-2, 94% of Yu Ming students meet or exceed English reading targets by 2nd grade.
At a time when 2 out of 3 children nationwide are unable to read with proficiency, this study confirms that Mandarin immersion–and Yu Ming’s program specifically–can be a life-changing opportunity that builds multiliterate students across linguistic and demographic differences, and equips them for limitless opportunities in a global future.
“We’re thrilled to be at the forefront of educational research, serving not only as a school but as a dynamic lab. At Yu Ming, we seek to continuously innovate to build a solid foundation for every student’s literacy journey, no matter their background,” commented Yu Ming CEO Stacey Wang.
Yu Ming Charter School was originally selected for this series of studies because it was one of the rare Mandarin immersion public schools actively teaching during the pandemic using a 90% Mandarin immersion model, and serving a diverse student body. “A diverse population was critical to the study because Mandarin Immersion has the reputation of catering to wealthy families, and to only be accessible to children who speak the language at home. We wanted to show that this is not the case,” said co-author Dr. Chan Lü, Associate Professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Literature at UW-Seattle.
The study is the third in a series of four studies on Mandarin immersion conducted using Yu Ming Charter School data. The first study “Bidirectional transfer of definition skills and expressive vocabulary knowledge in Chinese-English dual language learners” was published in the Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism in August 2022. The second study “Student-Level Variables and Academic Achievement in a Mandarin Dual Language Immersion Program” was published in February 2023 in the book Crossing Boundaries in Researching, Understanding, and Improving Language Education.
Dr. Chan Lü and Dr. Amy Pace, from the University of Washington, have been leading this multi-pronged research project with the goal to add Mandarin Immersion data to the body of research on immersion programs, most of which involve linguistically-similar languages such as English and Spanish.
References
- Chan Lü, Amy E. Pace & Sihui Ke (2022): Bidirectional transfer of definition skills and expressive vocabulary knowledge in Chinese-English dual language learners, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, DOI: 10.1080/13670050.2022.2108308
- Chan Lü, Amy E. Pace & Liu Liu (2023): Student-Level Variables and Academic Achievement in a Mandarin Dual Language Immersion Program, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-24078-2_10
- Amy Pace, Chan Lü, Laura X Guo, Jieyu Zhou (2024): Narrative Skills in Mandarin–English Dual Language Immersion Learners, Applied Linguistics, amae013, DOI: 10.1093/applin/amae013