Monrovia Unified Dual Immersion School Holds Moon and Stars Night, Celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival

Jessica Vazquez, a second-grader who has been a part of the school’s Mandarin dual-immersion program for three years, joined her class in re-enacting a Chinese legend about the moon.
 
“I like typing Mandarin and learning the dialogue,” Jessica, 7, said. “I want to learn more Mandarin and get smarter.”
 
Students conducted moon crater experiments and learned about constellations at booths. Families also observed the night sky through four high-powered telescopes provided by the Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers.
 
Plymouth offers a Mandarin dual-immersion program for students in kindergarten through second grade, providing an interactive academic environment for students to learn Mandarin along with the California Standards. The program aims to have students become bilingual and biliterate in Mandarin while understanding and appreciating Chinese culture.
 
Jessica’s parents also teach her Spanish at home, hoping that she will become trilingual.
 
“It would be beneficial to her future, regardless of whichever career she goes in,” said Elizabeth Vazquez, Jessica’s mom. “There are a lot of resources that the school provides to help us understand and help our children, so it’s a really great program.”
 
Jessica’s mom and sister participate in family Chinese classes twice a month, learning Chinese and class content to strengthen Jessica’s understanding at home.
 
“Monrovia Unified prepares our students to become global citizens in a multilingual and multicultural world,” Superintendent Dr. Katherine Thorossian said. “Our Dual Immersion programs ensures that each student will develop the linguistic, cognitive and social skills needed to communicate with the world at large.”