OLD TOWN TRIANGLE — LaSalle Language Academy is losing a Mandarin teacher at the end of the school year, but will get another back from the same source in the fall.
LaSalle is at the halfway point of a two-year Teachers of Critical Languages Program sponsored and funded by the U.S. State Department. It brought Mandarin teacher Miranda Qiang here in August. Qiang (pronounced "Chang") will return to her hometown of Nanjing in July, to be replaced by another Mandarin teacher a month later.
"It's been a terrific experience, and we're just delighted the school has been able to benefit from this amazing program," said Bridget Veitch, a French teacher who heads the Foreign Language department at the magnet school.
Mandarin was added to the school, which offers a concentration in foreign languages for all grades, in 2006, in effect replacing German. But it proved to be so popular — behind only Spanish in parental preference, according to Veitch — that having only one Mandarin teacher forced LaSalle to throw students from various grades together in sort of a one-room-schoolhouse approach. Qiang's arrival last year allowed the school to maintain classes by grade levels, the same as for Spanish, French and Italian.
But the benefits ran both ways, as is the intention with the State Department program.
"It's been quite an experience," Qiang said last week. "I definitely have learned a lot and have developed personally and professionally."
As part of the program, Qiang went through intensive orientation sessions in both Beijing and Washington, D.C., to prepare her for the differences between Chinese and American students.
"The Chinese students spend a lot more time on their work after school," Qiang said. "Here, I can't expect the same.
"But here I feel like students are more interested in the class," she added. "They're very passionate. In China, students are more passive."
That translated into less of what Veitch called "chalk and talk" textbook teaching, and more of an effort at what Qiang called "engaging" students.
She'll take that back with her to Nanjing, where she's already accepted a job as a department head in a private education firm.
But the program also fosters a cultural exchange in addition to the education, and Qiang fulfilled that by creating a Chinese club open to all students, not just the ones taking the language.
Qiang said she adapted quickly here because Nanjing and Chicago are "very similar," both with a sense of their history and of their place in the modern world. Nanjing has a population of 8 million, or about the same as the Chicago metropolitan area.
What Qiang didn't expect was that the city would play to one of her passions — salsa dancing.
She was already a fan of the music in China, but "I didn't expect such a big salsa scene in Chicago," Qiang said. Of course, she soon discovered that with Chicago's growing Hispanic population the salsa scene was jumping.
"It's always been the best way to meet new people," she added.
Qiang lived in Lincoln Park in digs paid for, like her salary, by the State Department. She said she loved the neighborhood, especially the restaurants, but again was surprised to discover her favorite Chinese restaurant, Chengdu Impression, 2545 N. Halsted St. With its emphasis on regional Chinese dishes, she found it even more authentic than any place in Chinatown.
LaSalle beat out hundreds of other schools to get one of 24 Chinese and Egyptian exchange teachers assigned to schools across the nation this year. Its emphasis on foreign languages was key, according to Veitch, in that most of the teachers were assigned to schools in small towns, not big cities.
"This is an amazing program that reaches children across the United States," Veitch said. "This is our Department of State that is putting a priority on this and saying this means something to us."
After Qiang leaves, LaSalle will get another Mandarin teacher back in the fall, but the program sets a two-year limit. So this time next year the school will have to look into other ways of getting what's proved to be an essential extra teacher — perhaps in a way affiliated with the program, perhaps by some other means.
Regardless, they're already looking into ways Qiang's students and fellow teachers can stay in contact through email and other devices, Veitch said, adding, "We certainly will stay in touch."
