Unlike the typical Miramonte Matador, I did not go to OIS. Instead, my parents took a different approach. I went to Yu Ming Charter School, a Mandarin immersion school in Oakland, a block away from MacArthur BART. You might be wondering: why would a white kid from Berkeley attend a Mandarin bilingual charter school in the middle of Oakland? I honestly don’t have the answers to that question, but I can tell you about my experiences there and why I think bilingual education is essential.
In terms of its campus, Yu Ming was very different from OIS, JM, or any other middle school in the Lamorinda area. There were two campuses: a lower school campus for grades K-5, located near UC Berkeley, and an upper school campus for middle schoolers, a 15-minute drive away in Oakland. The upper school campus was rented from a nearby church and didn’t have a field, just a big blacktop. Middle school sports were also very different. When I played basketball in middle school, we practiced in the second story of an office building on our campus, but the school didn’t actually own it. I remember the court was carpeted because we couldn’t make too much noise or we wouldn’t be allowed to practice there anymore.
Yu Ming is a K-8 school, so children start learning Mandarin at age five. In kindergarten, the only class not taught in Mandarin is English. This is to ensure that children start learning Mandarin earlier, making it easier for them to learn in the long run. A 2018 study from MIT shows children remain adept learners until the age of 17 or 18, and that children learn languages faster than adults because their brains are more flexible.
However, as kids progress through the grade levels at Yu Ming, the amount of Mandarin used for each course decreases because it becomes harder to teach more complex lessons in science, math, or history without using English. So, kindergarten through 3rd grade is 90% Mandarin, then it drops to around 75% Mandarin until 5th grade. Once students get to middle school, the only class that is taught fully in Mandarin is the actual Mandarin class. In contrast, subjects like math, science, and history are taught with a hybrid of English and Mandarin. For example, in math class, all necessary terms we needed to know such as “acute angle” or “axis”, are taught in English, but my math teacher would speak mostly in Mandarin while teaching a lesson. This hybrid speaking type is called “Chinglish” in Yu Ming.
Once I got to high school, I was able to go straight into AP Mandarin and take the AP test at the end of my freshman year. I am forever grateful to my parents for enrolling me in Yu Ming because I believe being fluent in a second language is one of the best skills you can have. In fact, I’m not the only one who went to Yu Ming and reaped the same benefits. My longtime friend Brody Suba also feels just as grateful for getting the opportunity to learn Mandarin from such a young age.
“The bilingual education that I got at Yu Ming was not only a super cool and unique experience, but it also made me a much better problem solver,” Suba said. “I had been so used to learning subjects like math and science in Chinese, which added another layer of difficulty, so once I got to high school all the math and science seemed way easier because there wasn’t the added hurdle of learning it.” Suba’s claim is backed up by evidence; a study from St. Augustine College at Lewis University concluded that bilingualism does in fact help people become better problem solvers because the constant pattern of switching between languages improves cognitive flexibility.
If any parents are reading this article, I implore you to get your child learning a second language sooner rather than later—even if that just means meeting with a tutor a few times a week. With all the benefits of being bilingual, I guarantee your child will thank you and carry on the lessons (and languages) they’ve learned.
