Graves Middle School and CABE Whittier partnered together to teach Chinese language classes and host a Chinese Vocabulary Contest at Graves to help promote bilingual education and bi-literacy for students.
The California Association for Bilingual Education, or better known as CABE, from Whittier brought Phd and MA TESOL, Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, candidates from Pepperdine University to teach South Whittier School District students Chinese.
Students took part in 9 sessions of Chinese classes and ended the course with a Chinese Vocabulary Contest. During the contest students were given an English word that they had to translate and say in Chinese. Towards the end of the contest teachers had to make up additional words and phrases because the students participating knew all vocabulary words in the contest database.
Many students who participated are already bilingual speakers and are now becoming trilingual through this program.
South Whittier School District’s superintendent, Dr. Gonzales, spoke to the students at the contest sharing how the benefits of being bilingual and trilingual can open many opportunities for them in the future and encouraged them to continue their pursuit of education.
All students that participated in the program were awarded certificates with a pizza party and the top five students from the contest were recognized with medals and trophies.