Friends of chip

Welcome

West Side Elementary School began hosting a kindergarten partial immersion Chinese program at the start of the 2012-2013 school year. Students enrolled in the program will continue through grade five and have the opportunity to develop communicative and academic proficiency in both Mandarin Chinese and English.

I want to enroll my child >>

Friends of Chip is a non-profit organization created to serve as an advisory board and support the Allegany County School District of Maryland in fostering bicultural and bilingual literacy in children enrolled in the Chinese Immersion Program (CHIP) at West Side Elementary School, Cumberland. The organization strives to increase community wide cultural awareness and enhance career opportunities for Allegany County families.

The primary goal of Friends of Chip is to raise funds to support those cultural and linguistic programs that are not funded by normal school district funds/ These programs included, but are not limited to, funding of supplies for the after-school Chinese cultural awareness programs; funding of a Chinese summer academy to advance cultural literacy; and funding for a 5th grade trip to China to immerse each CHIP child in the Chinese language and culture.

In The News

Our classroom was recently featured by a blog from the U.S. Department of Education (www.ed.gov) which highlights innovative ideas for K-12 schools in the blog titled "Maryland Pairs World Languages with STEM to Increase 21st-Century Skills" They discuss how we use Mandarin Chinese immersion to teach STEM content to our Kindergarten and First grade students to give our a community a competitive edge. Click here to check out the blog and hear about our amazing program.

How You Can Help >>
Your donations help supply special programs and cultural events. One of the highlights of the 2012-2013 school year was a visit to Washington DC for the New Years Parade and accompanying events. Students were able to interact with a dragon which tossed lettuce for good luck. Our immersion program currently includes Kindergarten and First grade. We are hoping to continue the program with each new Kindergarten class, along with allowing them to have Chinese immersion for Science and Math for the remainder of their Elementary career.

What does Chinese Immersion look like?

Immersion language learning will be carefully structured to ensure that instruction quickly becomes comprehensible. We will be instructing 50% in English and 50% in Mandarin Chinese.
STEM content will be instructed in Mandarin Chinese (Science, Technology, Health, Math)
There will be a strong technology connection. The classroom will be a high tech atmosphere with a SMART Table, SMARTboard, individual student iPads, etc.

The teacher will be a native speaking, fully credentialed early childhood/ elementary teacher.
The classroom will have hands-on learning stations designed to reinforce Mandarin language learning.
Enrolled students will also succeed academically in all subject areas at levels comparable to those they would have reached if they had only been schooled in English.