Language Students to Get Closer Connection to China

As early as next year, high school students in Gig Harbor could be chatting with fellow teens nearly 6,000 miles away as part of a network that links model Chinese language programs.

The’s Chinese language program was recently inducted into the Hanban-Asia Society’s Confucius Classrooms Network, which comes with an $11,500 grant to support its development and is renewable for three years.

Chinese teacher Heidi Steele said that through a future partnership with a sister school in China, students will have the chance to collaborate on research projects, use real-time video conferencing for student presentations, do peer-to-peer language coaching and more. 

And once the Peninsula School District has a partner school in China in place, exchanges for and high school students are on the horizon. 

Third-year Chinese language student Sam Becker participated in a similar exchange two years ago, visiting the family of Li Bochen, who goes by the English name of Peter, in Beijing.

“Peter and I come from opposite ends of the Earth, but our lives parallel each other in so many ways: we both stress over school and exams, we both want to get into good colleges, we both love our families and friends, we both are embarrassed by our mothers every once in a while, and most importantly, we both understand the importance of taking the time to understand your fellow human being,” said the Gig Harbor senior.

Joining the network builds on real-world teaching Steele already brings to her classrooms at Gig Harbor and Peninsula high schools. 

“When I teach the unit on renting an apartment, students work with actual apartment listings from Beijing real estate web sites,” explained Steele.

“When we do the weather unit, students read actual online weather forecasts in Chinese, but for the Seattle area. When we learn about transportation, we work with the actual subway system map from Beijing,” she said. 

Through webinars and seminars, teachers are already sharing ideas like these.

Although student exchanges may not occur until next year or the year after, Steele said that many other activities are already on tap.

They include an all-day immersion experience that will be open to Seattle-area Chinese language students; a Chinese cultural performance in Gig Harbor; and perhaps a Tai Chi class that would be open to students and community members. 

Emily Shea, a third-year Chinese language student, is one of 20 Peninsula School District students who will participate in an upcoming Chinese cultural education event. “I'm looking forward to a competition in Seattle this next weekend. I’ll be part of a Knowledge Bowl team and in the Public Speaking competition,” she said. 

More than 400 students are expected to participate. 

“Learning Chinese has been a great experience. I plan to keep studying and speaking Chinese as long as I can,” said the Gig Harbor junior. 

Becker, who’s also studied Spanish and Hebrew, explained how he believes the partnership will benefit students.   

“Recently when our class was studying a unit on food and cooking, we spent a class period actually cooking Chinese dishes and then creating a mock restaurant as our final oral exam for the lesson,” he said.

“I think such activities could become even more exciting—and more activities could become possible—with financial support from the partnership,” said Becker.