Chief Sealth High School

Schools in Seattle have a new "guest" teachers. Zhu Dan arrived in Seattle schools in January and will remain for a program of visiting professor of 18 months. Dan, who teaches college English in his native Kunming, China, has the opportunity to extend his stay for a year.

Dan is one of 34 teachers in 19 states invited to participate in a new partnership between the China Institute Hanban and the College Board, a nonprofit organization that administers the Advanced Placement exams and SAT tests). Plans are for an additional 100 guest teachers throughout the United States this summer and 250 in 2009. The partnership is part of large-scale efforts of China to promote the Mandarin language and getting people in other countries to learn.

It is the ideal program for many states of the Pacific coast that are a lot of business with China. Chief Sealth High School principal John Boyd visited China as part of a program Hanban and was inspired to offer a course in Mandarin to students in Seattle schools. He and Noah Zeichner, who heads the high school program of language in the world, wanted to expand the international scope in his Seattle school. They already have a student exchange program in Chongqing, China.

Zhu Dan teaches Mandarin in three Seattle schools - Denny East, Middle-Madison, and Chief Sealth high schools. While the Institute Hanban pays a stipend, Seattle schools provide accommodation, air tickets and cover other expenses. Dan lives with Sealth teacher Frank Cantwell and his family.

Dan applied for the program of a visiting professor for three reasons - to improve their own skills in English to help Americans better understand China and its culture, and help get the program started in schools in Seattle. She wants to leave his students with sufficient knowledge of the Mandarin language to survive a trip to his country.

Before traveling to the United States and schools of Seattle, Dan had to take an intensive two weeks in Beijing. It focused on our culture and our education system, our monetary system, and how to write a check (which is rarely the case in China).

Many schools from Seattle to his students has his way, because it looked interesting. Others have friends or family members who speak Mandarin. In its first two weeks of instruction, Dan Seattle schools students could count to ten in Mandarin, pronounce the Chinese names she gave them, work through the exercises in pronunciation and vocabulary exercises assigned to them, and sing a song about the Chinese New Year in the song "darling" Clementine. In addition, Dan shares her Chinese culture with students, make her classes more interesting.

Besides visiting professor program many schools in Seattle are now offering instruction in Mandarin, as well as advanced courses in Chinese and the AP wins college credit for the Seattle schools students who pass. For this year, the class of Dan Mandarin Sealth High School meets after school. It will be part of normal, day programs in the fall. Major Boyd is encouraging primary schools in its area of the school in Seattle to present a joint application for a second guest teacher for the Mandarin language.