Christopher Anderson/The Gazette Reid Temple Christian Academy kindergartner Jalen Roane, 6, points to characters written on the board Monday during a Chinese language class at the Glenn Dale school taught by Yen-Ling Shih (standing in background).

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Christopher Anderson/The Gazette Reid Temple Christian Academy kindergartner Jalen Roane, 6, points to characters written on the board Monday during a Chinese language class at the Glenn Dale school taught by Yen-Ling Shih (standing in background).

Christopher Anderson/The Gazette Reid Temple Christian Academy kindergartner Jalen Roane, 6, points to characters written on the board Monday during a Chinese language class at the Glenn Dale school taught by Yen-Ling Shih (standing in background).

 

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Camryn Deanes’s seventh-grade class at Reid Temple Christian Academy in Glenn Dale is studying Spanish with the help of the Ecuadorian embassy — while other grade levels have partnered this year with embassies representing Honduras, Mexico, Peru, the Dominican Republic, China, Singapore and Taiwan.

“It’s helped us understand where Spanish really derives from,” said Camryn, 12. “It’s really been exciting because I’m learning a new language, and it can help me later in life.”

The pre-kindergarten through eighth grade school invited embassy representatives to attend its first United Nations Day on Monday morning, when students sang national anthems and showcased their knowledge of these countries.

“We’re very excited about the opportunity to make our students better global citizens,” said assistant principal Donna Edwards.

“Our goal is to make sure students see we’re more alike than different, but that where we are different, to celebrate those differences.”

Yu-Mei Li, an officer in the cultural division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the U.S., said the Taiwanese embassy can offer Reid Temple Academy students opportunities to study Chinese and to learn cultural customs, including through pen-pal schools in Taiwan.

School administrators dreamed up the idea of embassy partnerships after a trip to China last summer as part of the development process for the school’s new Mandarin immersion program, Edwards said.

Yen-Ling Shih, who teaches the kindergarten and first-grade immersion program at Reid Temple Academy, said she uses online classroom resources from the Taiwanese embassy to explain the country’s customs to her students.

“When we have this partnership with embassies, it opens the doors for us to have an experience, to see the different worlds,” said Shih, whose students greet visitors with “ni hao,” which is Mandarin for “hello.”

Representatives from the Honduran embassy were scheduled to attend the program on Monday but canceled due to flooding in the country, Edwards said. After hearing the news, the third- and fourth-grade classes spearheaded a drive for food and other supplies to donate to the embassy.

The partnerships “bring a personal touch to what we’re trying to do,” said Malena Jack, who teaches Spanish to second- through eighth-grade students.

Jack, whose fifth-grade class visited the Peruvian embassy in September, assigns her students to research current events in their designated country. She also focuses on a particular country — its flag, anthem and foods — for each grade level.

“This allows the children to see there’s a world outside what they know,” Jack said.

Camryn is excited to see that world when the seventh- and eighth-grade classes visit Costa Rica on a mission trip this spring. This school has not partnered with the Costa Rican embassy, but the students will volunteer there in addition to visiting a school and studying native ecosystems.

“We’re going to a new country, and we get to spread the Gospel, and we get to help people in need,” Camryn said.

abrownback@gazette.net