Academy of Chinese draws Taiwanese visitors

Lately I’ve been thinking about the immersion and bi-lingual schools in Milwaukee Public Schools. If you’re wondering if they’re drawing positive attention to MPS, here’s one example for you.

On Thursday, two officials from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Chicago’s Cultural Division will travel to Milwaukee to visit the Milwaukee Academy of Chinese Language, 2430 W. Wisconsin Ave., an MPS charter school.

“We want to expand the program and I think it’s important to make these connections,” principal James Sayavong tells me.

The office requested a meeting with the school’s principal James Sayavong to expand cooperation between the two.  The office’s director Rose Chen and senior officer John Lin will visit the school to discuss a Chinese summer program in Taiwan and a school leaders visit to Taiwan and other potential collaborations.

Sayavong says he knows that in the past the Taiwanese government has provided grants and scholarships to students of Chinese and he hopes making connections like the one with the guests from Chicago will help expand Chinese language programs in MPS.

“We will have K5 or first grade students welcome them in Chinese and sing them a song in Chinese,” says Sayavong. “Eighth graders can serve them some tea. We have also sent an invitation to the superintendent (Gregory Thornton) to invite him to join us. It would be good for our district in the future, I think.”