Chinese and TandemPlus Continue to CLIC
The Culture and Language Integration in Chinese and English (CLIC) Program, an innovative exchange program for local high school students and University of Minnesota international students, has just completed its second year!
The Twin Cities area is home to a growing number of K-12 immersion programs for several languages, including Chinese. These programs give students a great start towards developing advanced-level language proficiency and cultural competency. However, these immersion opportunities are centered around elementary and middle school, and many immersion graduates move to a high school without an appropriate language curriculum for their level. Without an opportunity for regular and structured practice, these students’ Chinese language abilities can wither during the high school years.
The University of Minnesota attracts international students from around the world, including China. These students are already bilingual in Chinese and English, but they are often looking for opportunities to practice their English outside of class. The TandemPlus program pairs many Chinese and English learners on campus. However, there are more native speakers of Chinese looking for English-language partners than there are students learning Chinese as a second language.
CLIC is a partnership between the Language Center TandemPlus program and the Chinese and Chinese Flagship programs in the department of Asian Languages and Literatures. It provides weekly conversation sessions for former Chinese immersion students who are now in a more traditional high school (informally called immersion gap students), and native speakers of Chinese at this university.
Zhen Zou, Education Specialist, is the CLIC coordinator and instructor. Following the TandemPlus model, half of the conversation is in Chinese and half is in English. To help both groups of students develop their skills, the conversations are structured and guided, designed to lead to in-depth discussion and vocabulary growth. In pairs or small groups, students discuss a variety of subjects, including family, hometown, music, sports, travel, global warming, environmental protection, etc.. The program provides opportunities for every participant to practice speaking his/her target language with native speakers and the whole classroom is filled with the sound of conversation. Zhen encourages the students to improve the proficiency of their target language from ACTFL intermediate to advanced level by speaking organized, coherent paragraphs in their discussion rather than single sentences.
With the support of two departments, CLIC is thriving. Since Fall 2017, more than 200 students have participated in this program. During Spring 2019, 58 students participated, and seven of them attended ten or more sessions, and were awarded a Certificate of Completion.
