A Mandarin/English Two‐WayImmersion Program: LanguageProficiency and AcademicAchievementAmado M. PadillaStanford University

Lorraine FanStanford University

Xiaoqiu XuPearson Knowledge Technologies

Duarte SilvaStanford University

Abstract: A Mandarin/English two‐way immersion elementary program is describedfrom its inception and implementation through the fifth grade, the culminating year of theprogram. All students in all grades were assessed on their oral/listening, reading, andwriting performance in Mandarin using program‐created assessment measures. Fifth‐grade students also took the Mandarin STAMP 4Se test online to assess their oral andliteracy performance. In addition, all second‐ through fifth‐grade students participated inthemandated California Standards Tests for English language arts, writing (fourth grade),math, and science (fifth grade). Results showed that across grades, Mandarin immersionstudents acquired high‐level performance in oral/listening, reading, and writing in Man-darin. A comparison of Mandarin heritage students with non‐heritage students in theimmersion program initially favored heritage students in the acquisition of Mandarin;however, this advantage was not statistically significant in the later grades. On themandated California standardized tests, the non‐immersion students from the same schoolin the second and third grades had higher scores on the English language arts andmath test,

Amado M. Padilla (PhD, University of New Mexico) is Professor of PsychologicalStudies in Education, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.Lorraine Fan (MS, Stanford University) is a PhD student in the Stanford UniversityGraduate School of Education, Stanford, CA.Xiaoqiu Xu (PhD, Stanford University) is a test development specialist at PearsonKnowledge Technologies, Sunnyvale, CA.Duarte Silva (EdD, University of San Francisco) is an Executive Director of theCalifornia Foreign Language Project at Stanford University, Stanford, CA.Foreign Language Annals, Vol. 46, Iss. 4, pp. 661–679. © 2013 by American Council on the Teaching of ForeignLanguages.DOI: 10.1111/flan.12060

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but in the upper grades, Mandarin immersionstudents scored higher than their non‐immer-sion peers in these two subject areas.

Key words: Mandarin, academic achieve-ment, elementary, immersion, language per-formance, standardized tests

With the rapid rate of globalization andChina’s increasingly important role in theworld economy, there has been a dramaticincrease in interest in the study of Chinese1

in the United States. The number of Chineselanguage programs in the United States,from elementary through adult programs,tripled from 1995 to 2005 and continuesto expand (Asia Society, 2006; Dobuzinskis,2011; Neely, 2011). Among those programs,Mandarin two‐way immersion programs arein high demand, and the number of suchprograms is growing (Rogers, 2012): In2012, there were approximately 125 (mostlyelementary) schools that had Mandarin two‐way immersion programs in theUnited States(Worthen, 2012). The largest number ofsuch programs is found on the West Coastof the United States, with additional schooldistricts announcing their intention to openMandarin two‐way immersion programs inthe near future (Worthen, 2012).

BackgroundMost of what is known about two‐way im-mersion programs comes from researcherswho have studied French immersion pro-grams in Canada and Spanish immersionprograms in the United States (Lindholm‐

Leary, 2001). Although there is now a surgein the popularity of English/Mandarin two‐way immersion programs, there have beenvery few published papers that have summa-rized the issues and complexities involved inlearning Mandarin and English for childrenin such programs. Two exceptions are achapter by Lindholm‐Leary (2011) that pre-sented students’ self‐ratings for Chinese orallanguage proficiency and a study by Chang(2011) that examined the impact of Manda-rin instruction on academic, attitudinal, and

cognitive development. The Lindholm‐

Leary language outcome data can only beconstrued as interesting because of the lim-itations of student self‐ratings of languageproficiency. Further, while Chang statedthat parents and teachers believed that stu-dent academic work was enhanced with in-struction in Mandarin, no quantitative datawere offered to show that instruction actu-ally led to increased academic or cognitivedevelopment.

Given the dearth of information onMandarin/English two‐way immersion pro-grams, it is critical to understand the uniquechallenges that learning Mandarin andEnglish in a two‐way immersion programpresents, particularly when compared tosimilar, and more typical, French/Englishor Spanish/English programs. As a startingpoint, it is important to first delve intothe question of linguistic complexity. Lan-guages that are taught at the Defense Lan-guage Institute Foreign Language Center inMonterey, CA, are categorized by difficultylevel and length of instruction in terms ofthe number of weeks that are required for alearner to acquire an intermediate level ofproficiency in the language.

� Category I languages are closely related toEnglish, and an intermediate level of pro-ficiency may generally be acquired in26 weeks (e.g., French and Spanish).

� Category II languages exhibit more lin-guistic differences from English, andlearners generally need 35 weeks of in-struction to reach the intermediate level(e.g., German and Indonesian).

� 48 weeks of instruction are required forCategory III languages (e.g., Russian, Per-sian‐Afghan, Urdu).

� Category IV languages are exceptionallydifficult for native English speakers andrequire 64 weeks of instruction for learn-ers to reach the intermediate level (e.g.,Chinese, Arabic). (H. Sung‐Frear, person-al communication, September 26, 2013).

One must also keep in mind that studentswho attend the Defense Language Institute

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are adults, are admitted based on rigorousselection criteria, possess strong aptitude forlanguage study, and are taught in small clas-ses of typically no more than six learners. Itwould be expected that the number of weeksrequired to reach an intermediate level ofproficiency could be much greater for di-verse groups of young learners in publicschool, two‐way immersion programs(Odlin, 1989).

Furthermore, it is important to consid-er the differences between English and someof the languages that are popular in two‐waylanguage immersion programs and to con-trast these to Mandarin. For example,French and Spanish are both Romancelanguages and, while they differ in majorways from English, whose roots lie in theGermanic languages, these languages are allin the family of Indo‐European languages(Fortson, 2004). As Spanish, French, andEnglish are all in the same language family,they share a number of similarities in gram-mar, lexicon, and phonology. In addition,all share a Romanized alphabet and orthog-raphy where the mechanics of writing arethe same—from left to right and top tobottom. There are many differences amongthese languages, as any language learnerwill attest, but the similarities over timeoutweigh the differences, and the secondlanguage learner can make use of metalin-guistic knowledge from the first language tounderstand how a new language works(Odlin, 1989). Thus, a young child learningto read in a Spanish/English immersionclass has only to learn a single alphabet inorder to begin the process of acquiring read-ing and writing in not one, but twolanguages.

In contrast, a Mandarin/English two‐way immersion program offers a specificset of challenges for teachers and studentsin comparison to French/English or Span-ish/English programs. Mandarin belongs tothe Sino‐Tibetan language family, whichaccounts for the many differences betweenMandarin and English (Li & Thompson,1981). First, unlike English, Spanish, orFrench, Mandarin is a tonal language where

the meaning of a word changes based onthe tone used. For example, the tone that isused—high‐level m�a (mother), risingmá (hemp), falling‐rising m�a (horse), andfalling mà (scold)—completely changes themeaning of the word. Thus, the English‐speaking child learning Mandarin not onlyhas the challenge of learning a new languagewith a different set of phonological rules butalso has the added complexity of listeningfor and producing tones in the new lan-guage. Another complication is that, whilethe English‐speaking child begins to learngrammatical rules while reading and writ-ing in English (e.g., verb tenses, subject‐verb‐object placement, adjective‐nounplacement), in Mandarin such rules arenot parallel. For instance, there are no con-jugations, declensions, or other inflectionsin Mandarin. In addition, the same verbform is used for all persons (first, second,third), and tense is expressed through ad-verbs of time such as today, yesterday, ortomorrow (Li & Thompson, 1981; Yip &Don, 2004). A third major difference hasto do with orthography: Children in a two‐way immersion program have to learn Chi-nese characters, a writing system that, un-like English, French, or Spanish, is notphonetic. Mastery of Chinese characters isusually considered difficult because of thelarge number of non‐phonetic, visuallycomplex symbols that constitute the char-acter orthography of the language (Packard,1990)—there are a total of 28 distinguish-able types of strokes, and the number ofstrokes in a particular character may varyfrom 1 to 30 (Shen, 2005). Although thenumber of strokes seems to be controllable,the combination and layout of the strokesvary across Chinese characters and makethem particularly challenging to write andremember for older learners andmuchmoreso for children (Xu & Padilla, 2013). Final-ly, in addition to learning characters, stu-dents in two‐way Mandarin/Englishprograms must also learn to read and writeusing pinyin, a Roman alphabet that wasadopted in 1958 to facilitate the spread ofMandarin and the learning of Chinese

Foreign Language Annals � VOL. 46, NO. 4 663

characters. Pinyin uses the 26 Roman let-ters, plus ü and four diacritics for tones.

In sum, Mandarin presents multiplelayers of linguistic complexity that go be-yond those found in learning Spanish orFrench as second languages for a nativeEnglish speaker. For this reason, it is partic-ularly important to study how two lan-guages as disparate as English andMandarin can be acquired by children in atwo‐way immersion program.

In two‐way immersion programs, it isimportant to have a near balance of heritageand non‐heritage language learners enrolledsuch that both groups of children have peernative language models while they learneach other’s language. In addition, it is criti-cal that in addition to gaining increasingproficiency in both languages, childrenalso demonstrate mastery of grade‐level spe-cific content in language arts, math, science,and social studies. The purpose of this studywas to track the progress of heritage lan-guage and non‐heritage language learnersenrolled in a public Mandarin/English two‐way immersion program as theymoved fromkindergarten through the fifth grade and tocompare their academic performance withsame‐age peers attending the same schoolbut not enrolled in the Mandarin program.

Methods

Program DevelopmentParent interest in a Mandarin immersionprogram began in 2005 in a suburban schooldistrict of approximately 12,500 students inan upper‐middle‐income community inNorthern California. The district is knownfor its high academic performance, with agraduation rate of 98%, and from whichmost high school graduates continue on tohigher education. The district is composedof 13 elementary schools, including twoschools of choice, three middle schools,and twohigh schools. The district also housesa Spanish immersion program in one of itselementary school buildings.

Although the initial plan for a Mandarinimmersion program was not approved by

the school board, the school district, in col-laboration with the California World Lan-guage Project at Stanford University, appliedfor and received a Foreign Language Assis-tance Program (FLAP) grant to implementMandarin instruction at the elementary andsecondary levels. The FLAP grant wasawarded to the district in 2007, and theschool board approved the opening ofa mixed‐grade (K–1, 2–3, 4–5) Mandarinimmersion program offered as a public ele-mentary school‐of‐choice option in 2008.

ParticipantsTwo K–1 mixed‐grade classes, each includ-ing 10 kindergarten and 10 first‐grade stu-dents (a total of 40 students), were enrolledin the program. A pool of children whosehome language included Mandarin andwhose parents expressed an interest in plac-ing their child in the first immersion classeswere given an oral interview to determinetheir age‐appropriate proficiency in Manda-rin. On the basis of the interview, 10 enter-ing kindergarteners and 10 first graders wereselected as the native Mandarin speakers.The names of non‐Mandarin‐speaking chil-dren were entered into a lottery from whichanother 10 kindergarteners and 10 first‐grade students were selected. In both cases,the first‐grade students already had aone‐year kindergarten experience in a non‐Mandarin immersion program. The re-searchers followed the students throughtheir fifth‐grade year. In subsequent years,a lottery system was put in place to fill theentering kindergarten class. Since the begin-ning of the program in fall 2008, the schoolhas added 20 new kindergarten studentseach year. Table 1 shows the enrollment ofstudents in the Mandarin two‐way immer-sion program across grade levels. Althoughwhen they enroll their children, parentsare discouraged from withdrawing theirchildren from the program, some attritionis inevitable; thus, the actual enrollmentsvaried by grade level.

The teachers were all native Mandarinspeakers who had completed most of their

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education in China and who received a mul-tiple‐subject credential in bilingual educa-tion from universities in California with aspecialization in Mandarin.

Program DesignStudents received instruction in Mandarinand English in mixed grade levels accordingto the following approximate balance overthe K–5 program:

� K–1: 80% Mandarin instruction, 20%English instruction

� 2–3: 60% Mandarin instruction, 40%English instruction

� 4–5: 50% Mandarin instruction, 50%English instruction

The program has several additional attrac-tive and innovative features. First, followingthe mixed‐grade philosophy of the school,there is frequent collaboration between theolder and younger children within eachclassroom and thus each younger group ofstudents has regular and sustained contactwith older students who can serve as linguis-tic and content guides. Second, curriculumand instruction are designed to be meaning-ful and relevant to students so that theybecome thinking, probing learners whosearch for understanding rather than mem-orization. Furthermore, social and emotion-al development are regarded as beingas important as academic development.Finally, parent involvement is viewed as

an important and crucial element of theprogram, and parents are actively involvedin the program by assisting teachers inteaching subjects, organizing activities, ormaintaining classroom discipline.

Students in the Mandarin two‐way im-mersion program receive instruction in thecore curriculum based on the California anddistrict content standards for elementaryschool. In addition, prior to the start ofthe program, a curriculum was createdthat infused best practices in structuringMandarin instruction in a developmentallyappropriate manner. The Mandarin curricu-lum called for using simplified charactersand pinyin and included the following fea-tures: explicit language instruction in read-ing and writing Chinese characters, correctform and stroke order for writing in Chi-nese, content‐based instruction, and real‐lifeopportunities to use Mandarin.

AssessmentThe purpose of this study was to (1) exam-ine the listening/oral, reading, and writingperformance in Mandarin of students whohad participated in a Mandarin two‐way im-mersion program for varying lengths oftime, and (2) compare immersion students’academic achievement in English languagearts, math, and science with scores fromstudents from the same elementary schoolwho were not in the Mandarin program onstatewide achievement tests that are admin-istered to all students in California.

TABLE 1

Possible and Actual Student Enrollment in the Immersion

Program Across Time

Year Classes Possible # Actual #

2008–09 K–1, K–1 40 402009–10 K–1, K–1, 2 60 662010–11 K–1, K–1, 2–3, 2–3 80 882011–12 K–1, K–1, 2–3, 2–3, 4 100 1062012–13 K–1, K–1, 2–3, 2–3, 4–5, 4–5 120 124

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Mandarin Proficiency AssessmentIn order to assess students’ language acqui-sition across the four linguistic skills, aMandarin Proficiency Assessment (MPA)was developed through collaboration be-tween the Mandarin immersion teachersand researchers at Stanford University. TheMPAwas developed as an end‐of‐school‐yearassessment tool and initially was created forthe K–1 class. In the second year of theprogram, the second‐grade assessment wasadded to the MPA, with the third‐, fourth‐,and fifth‐grade levels developed in succes-sive years. TheMPA consisted of three majorsections: oral language, reading, and writing.

� Oral assessment: In the oral section, stu-dents had to first successfully complete alistening task prior to beginning the con-versation task. Only students who suc-cessfully completed the conversationtask proceeded to the picture‐based sto-rytelling task. The oral proficiency rubric(see Appendix) assessed oral performanceat six levels, from naming objects to de-scribing them in context.

� Reading assessment: The reading assess-ment involved word‐ and sentence‐levelreading for levels 1 through 4, vocabularyand story comprehension for levels 5 and6, and story comprehension for levels 7and 8. The reading rubric (see Appendix)assessed reading competency at eight lev-els, from recognizing characters/words tocomprehending short stories.

� Writing assessment: The writing assess-ment required students to write about atopic, such as introducing themselvesor their families. The writing rubric (seeAppendix) assessed student performanceusing an assessment rubric designedto evaluate students on their content,vocabulary, organization, mechanics(grammar, punctuation), penmanship,completion, and effort. A maximum of20 points were equally distributed amongthese five areas.

Classroom teachers administered the MPAnear the end of each academic year. Teachers

also scored the MPA for each student. Forthe descriptions of the assessment levels ineach area, please refer to the Appendix.

Standards‐Based Measure of Proficiency(STAMP)The STAMP test (Avant Assessment, 2012)was selected as a standardized external mea-sure of students’Mandarin performance andwas used to assess end‐of‐program acquisi-tion of Mandarin. In spring 2013, 14 fifthgraders took the STAMP 4Se assessment.The computerized assessment was designedand rated by Avant Assessment.

California Student Achievement MeasuresStudents’ performance in reading/Englishlanguage arts, writing, math, and sciencewas assessed employing the California Stan-dardized Testing and Reporting (STAR)measure that is administered annually toall students in the state starting in the secondgrade. This assessment provides individualperformance results for all students.

ResultsIn order to examine immersion students’progress in Mandarin, a cross‐sectionalview of their language development fromkindergarten through fifth grade usingdata from 2010 to 2013 is provided.2

Listening/Oral PerformanceStudents’ scores on the listening and speak-ing sections of the MPA are presented inFigure 1. The data in Figure 1 demonstratethat, at the end of kindergarten, the medianstudent was only able to engage in basicconversations, whereas 31% of the studentswere merely managing to listen to andfollow some instructions. However, a yearlater, the median student was already able todescribe what happened in a story illustratedby a picture (level 3). The median remainedthe same in second grade, but a larger per-centage of students were able to perform ator above level 3. By the end of third grade,the median student was able to answerteachers’ questions with one to two

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sentences (level 4); specifically, the medianstudent could reflect on the story in thepicture and describe how and why some-thing happened and what would follow.

Heritage and non‐heritage learners’scores are presented in Figure 2. As shownin Figure 2, heritage language speakers per-formed moderately better than non‐heritagelanguage speakers. Although their medianlevels differed by zero to one level fromkindergarten through third grade, heritagelanguage speakers tended to concentratemore in the higher levels for each grade,while non‐heritage language speakers wereproportionately more concentrated in thelower spectrum.

STAMP scores for fifth graders are pre-sented in Figure 3. Of the 14 fifth graderswho took the STAMP4Se assessment on lis-tening, 57% achieved level 6, whereas theremaining students were evenly distributedbetween levels 3 through 5. According to theassessment rubric, students who score atlevel 6 are able to “understand and use lan-guage for straightforward informationalpurposes” (Avant Assessment, 2012, n.p.).

Speaking samples on the STAMP 4Sewere collected from 13 fifth graders, as

shown in Figure 4. Sixty‐two percent of thestudents were rated level 4, which corre-sponds to Intermediate Low on the STAMPassessment scale. According to the develop-ers of the STAMP 4Se test, this level is char-acterized by good accuracy with formulaicsentences and added detail. Further, goodcontrol is expected with a majority of theresponses and, while some errors may occuras a student attempts higher‐level skills, theimportant thing is that the student reachesbeyond his or her level of comfort (AvantAssessment, 2012). This finding is encourag-ing and shows that the fifth‐grade studentshad acquired an intermediate level of oralcompetence in Mandarin by the time theyexited the two‐way Mandarin immersionprogram.

Reading PerformanceThe MPA also revealed increases in stu-dents’ reading proficiency in Mandarin,as shown in Figure 5. Overall medianswere level 1, indicating that students couldidentify at least 40 out of 50 test words,chosen from a pool of approximately 100basic high‐frequencywords, in kindergarten.

FIGURE 1

MPA: Listening/Oral

1

2

3

4

5

6

K 1 2 3

Asse

sed

Leve

l

Grade Level

Conv

List

Pre-List

Sample:84 kindergarten, 79 first-grade, 86 second-grade, and 57 third-grade students in 2010-13 combined.

Note: In all figures with markers and error bars, the markers represent the medians while the errorbars indicate the upper and lower quartiles.

Foreign Language Annals � VOL. 46, NO. 4 667

Students progressed to level 2 in first grade,level 3 in second grade, and level 4 in thirdgrade, and made a large jump to level 7—reading the words of a 290‐word story aloudand answering five comprehension ques-tions—by fourth and fifth grade. At the con-clusion of kindergarten, 45% of the studentswere not ready for level 1 words, and 38%were rated at level 1. In contrast, 66% of thefourth and fifth graders combined were ableto orally express their understanding of thelevel 7 material. Heritage language speakersas a whole outperformed their non‐heritagelanguage peers on the reading portion of the

MPA by about one level from kindergarten tothird grade (Figure 6). Nonetheless, thesmall samples of the two groups were similarin fourth and fifth grades.

Results for the 14 fifth graders who tookthe STAMP4Se assessment in reading arepresented in Figure 7. The fifth graders’reading scores were roughly evenly distrib-uted among levels 3 through 6 on theSTAMP 4Se. According to the assessmentrubric, Novice students at level 3 rely onbasic vocabulary and phrases and can recog-nize the purpose of basic texts. On the otherhand, studentswho score in the Intermediate

FIGURE 2

MPA: Oral by Heritage Language

1

2

3

4

5

6

K 1 2 3

Asse

sed

Leve

l

Grade LevelHeritage Language Non-Heritage Language

Conv

List

Pre-List

FIGURE 3

Mandarin Listening: Fifth Grade

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Perc

enta

ge o

f Stu

dent

s

Assessment LevelSample: 14 students from 2013.

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Low to High range (levels 4 to 6) in reading“understand the main ideas and explicit de-tails in everyday language… and understandinformation in everyday materials… answerquestions about the main idea and explicitlystated details” (Avant Assessment, 2012, n.p.). This is encouraging because it demon-strated that Mandarin two‐way immersionstudents who were about to exit from theprogram had made significant advances inunderstanding written Mandarin (readingcomprehension). Interestingly, the Spear-man rank correlation between the MPAand STAMP 4Se assessments on readingwas 0.77.

Writing PerformanceThe majority of kindergarteners and firstgraders were not expected to be able to writecomplete sentences in Chinese characters.Therefore, the writing assessment com-menced in second grade. As mentioned ear-lier, writing samples were evaluated on fivedimensions: content; vocabulary; organiza-tion; mechanics (grammar, punctuation);and penmanship, completion, and effort.The results from 2012 and 2013 are summa-rized in Figure 8. The median score out of amaximum of 20 points was 11 in secondgrade, 14 in third grade, and 16 in fourthand fifth grade. While only 7% of the second

FIGURE 4

Mandarin Speaking: Fifth Grade

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Perc

enta

ge o

f Stu

dent

s

Assessment LevelSample:13 students from 2013.

FIGURE 5

MPA: Reading

Foreign Language Annals � VOL. 46, NO. 4 669

graders were barely ready for the writingassessment and 21% of them received lowscores, the large majority of students scoredin the middle and upper ends of the spec-trum in subsequent grade levels. Overall, infourth and fifth grades, 94% of the studentsreceived 13 points or more.

Data for heritage and non‐heritagelearners are presented in Figure 9. Heritageand non‐heritage language speakers scoredsimilarly, although the former group en-joyed a slight edge in terms of scoredistributions.

Writing samples on the STAMP 4Sewere also collected from 14 fifth gradersand are shown in Figure 10. Seventy‐onepercent of the 14 fifth graders were ratedlevel 4. This level is characterized by “goodaccuracy with formulaic sentences andadded detail” but with occasional errorsupon attempts at higher‐level skills, and apossible lack of flow in delivery. This resultwas consistent with that of speaking. TheSpearman rank correlations of the STAMP4Se were 0.53 with MPA scores, and 0.61with MPA levels.3

FIGURE 6

MPA: Reading by Heritage Language

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

K 1 2 3 4 5

Asse

ssed

Lev

el

Grade Level

Heritage Language Non-Heritage Language

B

A

FIGURE 7

Mandarin Reading: Fifth Grade

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

1 2 3 4 5 6 6+

Perc

enta

ge o

f Stu

dent

s

Assessment Level

Sample: 14 students from 2013.

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Academic Achievement in EnglishLanguage Arts and WritingIn California, all students are required totake the STAR exams beginning in secondgrade. STAR test results for Mandarin im-mersion students are presented in Table 2and compared with the scores of studentswho were enrolled in the same elementaryschool but were not in the immersion pro-gram. These data are particularly importantin helping to understand how the Mandarinimmersion students performed in English

language arts on California’s standardizedtests even though only a portion of theschool day was spent using English and inEnglish language instruction. A standardscore was computed for each student testoutcome to represent the difference betweenthe original score and the mean of that gradeacross the immersion and non‐immersionprograms of the school in the correspondingtest year in terms of number of standarddeviations. Standard scores were used be-cause student composition could vary

FIGURE 8

MPA: Writing

02468

101214161820

2 3 4 5

Scor

e ou

t of 2

0

Grade LevelSample: 43 second-grade, 42 third-grade, 21 fourth-grade, and 14 fi�h-grade students in 2012 and 2013 combined.

FIGURE 9

MPA: Writing by Heritage Language

02468

101214161820

2 3 4 5

Scor

e ou

t of 2

0

Grade LevelHeritage Language Non-Heritage Language

Foreign Language Annals � VOL. 46, NO. 4 671

from year to year, and such variance couldpresent a particular concern for small sam-ples. The data were then combined acrosstest years for each grade. Using the standardscores, immersion and non‐immersiongroups could be compared, giving each stu-dent equal weight. In addition, within theimmersion program, comparisons could bemade between heritage speakers and non‐heritage speakers.

In second grade, the mean z‐score ofthe immersion students on the STAR testsfor English language arts was 0.33 lower thanthat of the non‐immersion students,t(131.11)¼ 2.70, p¼ 0.01.4 In contrast, by

fourth grade, the average z‐score of theimmersion students was 0.51 higher,t(47.56)¼ 2.56, p¼ 0.01. The differences inimmersion and non‐immersion group meansin third and fifth grades were not statisticallysignificant at p< 0.05, although it should benoted that the small sample (13 fifth‐gradeimmersion students) could have contributedto the lack of a significant finding. None ofthe differences between the heritage and non‐heritage language students in the immersionprogram were statistically significant.

When comparing the students in theimmersion and non‐immersion programs,the proportion of students who were

FIGURE 10

Mandarin Writing: Fifth Grade

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

1 2 3 4 5 6 6+

Perc

enta

ge o

f Stu

dent

s

Assessment LevelSample: 14 students from 2013.

TABLE 2

Distribution of STAR Results� for English Language Arts, 2010–13

Grade Immersion Far BelowBasic

BelowBasic

Basic Proficient Advanced N

2 Y 4% 5% 17% 39% 36% 84N 0% 2% 17% 37% 45% 300

3 Y 0% 0% 16% 35% 49% 55N 0% 2% 16% 36% 46% 304

4 Y 0% 0% 3% 11% 86% 36N 1% 1% 6% 21% 72% 156

5 Y 0% 0% 0% 23% 77% 13N 0% 0% 4% 23% 73% 82

�Individual scores on the different standardized tests are then assigned to one of fivedifferent performance levels: Advanced, Proficient, Basic, Below basic, and Far below basic,which indicate students mastery of state standards.

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considered proficient or advanced in Englishlanguage arts never differed bymore than sixpercentage points. As can be seen in Table 2,the number of immersion and non‐immer-sion students, respectively, who were evalu-ated to be proficient or advanced were 75%and 81% in second grade, 84% and 82% inthird grade, 97% and 92% in fourth grade,and 100% and 96% in fifth grade.

Fourth graders also took the STARassessments in writing. Test scores werereported using different scales in 2012and in 2013. In 2012, scores were 2, 4, 6,or 8, and in 2013, the scores were reportedas 1, 2, 3, or 4. Students’ scores on the 2012and 2013 writing test are presented in Table3. In 2012, the immersion and non‐immer-sion students performed similarly, eachwith approximately a quarter of the stu-dents receiving the second highest possiblescore, and three‐quarters receiving the max-imum score (Table 3). In 2013, the immer-sion students performed slightly better thanthe non‐immersion students: Fifty‐ninepercent of the immersion students attainedthe maximum score when writing inEnglish, in comparison with their non‐immersion counterparts’ 43%.

Academic Achievement in Math andScienceOn standardized tests of mathematics, im-mersion and non‐immersion students per-formed similarly in second and third

grades. Subsequently, immersion studentsbegan to outperform their non‐immersionpeers, as shown in Table 4. In fourth grade,the mean z‐score of the immersion studentswas 0.85 higher than the non‐immersionstudents’ scores, t(47.96)¼ 4.47, p< 0.001.In fifth grade, the mean z‐score of the im-mersion students was 1.05 higher than thenon‐immersion students’ scores, t(16.85)¼3.95, p< 0.01. None of the differencesbetween the heritage and non‐heritagelanguage immersion students were statisti-cally significant at p< 0.05.

The proportion of students who wereconsidered proficient or advanced withmath generally suggested an edge forstudents in the immersion program overstudents in the non‐immersion program.The number of immersion and non‐im-mersion students, respectively, evaluatedto be proficient or advanced were 96%and 88% in second grade, 84% and 86%in third grade, 92% and 79% in fourthgrade, and 100% and 83% in fifth grade(Table 4).

In fifth grade, students also took theSTAR test in science. The difference inscores between the immersion and non‐immersion groups was not statisticallysignificant: The proportions of studentswho were assessed to be proficient oradvanced were 92% for the immersiongroup and 93% for the non‐immersiongroup.

TABLE 3

Distribution of STAR Results for Writing in Fourth Grade, 2012–13

Year Immersion 2 4 6 8 Not Scored� N

2012 Y 0% 0% 23% 77% 0% 13N 0% 3% 22% 72% 3% 76

Year Immersion 1 2 3 4 Not Scored N

2013 Y 0% 0% 41% 59% 0% 22N 0% 3% 52% 43% 3% 77

�One student submitted a blank paper, while a second student wrote on a topic other thanthe assigned writing prompt.

Foreign Language Annals � VOL. 46, NO. 4 673

DiscussionOver the last two decades, two‐way languageimmersion programs have become increas-ingly available in elementary schoolsthroughout the United States. Spanish/En-glish two‐way immersion programs consti-tute the most prevalent form of suchprograms and have the longest history(Lindholm‐Leary, 2001). Because of thegrowing importance of China as an econom-ic power, there has been a marked intereston the part of parents, language educators,and policy makers in Mandarin/English im-mersion programs, especially on the WestCoast of the United States. Although theseprograms present interesting challenges forschool administrators due to the lack of bothcredentialed Mandarin/English teachers andcurricular materials (Chang, 2011), thesechallenges are not substantially differentfrom challenges experienced in other two‐way language programs. In addition, one ofthe crucial concerns across two‐way immer-sion programs in any language is that stu-dents not only emerge as bilingual andbiliterate, but they also demonstrate aca-demically equivalent gains in the core con-tent areas of English language arts, math,and science when compared to their peerswho have not been enrolled in a two‐wayimmersion program.

The results reported here presentstrong evidence that students can attain ahigh level of performance in Mandarin asassessed by both teacher‐developed andnationally recognized measures of oralskills, reading, and writing. The data fur-ther indicate that learning progresses in anorderly fashion from kindergarten throughfifth grade for oral, reading, and writingtasks. An interesting, but not completelysurprising, finding was that heritage lan-guage students initially showed higher lev-els of attainment in Mandarin than didnon‐heritage students. However, by fourthand fifth grade these differences dimin-ished, although heritage learners still per-formed slightly higher. For example, inassessing oral Mandarin, the rubric calledfor accuracy in language use, which in-cluded both accuracy of tones and fluencyin speaking. Results from both sets of as-sessments indicated that non‐heritagelearners mastered language use in similarways as heritage learners. Finally, eventhough the fifth‐grade cohort was small(n¼ 14), an objective assessment—theSTAMP 4Se—supported the teacher‐devel-oped measures in indicating that studentswere indeed performing at a comparablelevel in Mandarin listening, speaking, read-ing, and writing.

TABLE 4

Distribution of STAR Results in Math, 2010–13

Grade Immersion FarBelowBasic

BelowBasic

Basic Proficient Advanced N

2 Y 0% 2% 1% 26% 70% 84N 0% 3% 9% 28% 61% 301

3 Y 0% 2% 14% 11% 73% 56N 0% 3% 11% 25% 60% 303

4 Y 0% 0% 8% 17% 75% 36N 1% 3% 18% 30% 49% 155

5 Y 0% 0% 0% 8% 92% 13N 0% 2% 15% 36% 47% 81

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An equally important question for pro-gram developers and parents addresses theextent to which students in a two‐way im-mersion program achieve at comparablelevels on state‐mandated accountabilitymeasures in the core content areas of En-glish language arts, math, and science assame‐age peers who are not enrolled in lan-guage immersion programs. From a policyperspective, educators want to be certainthat the resources spent on two‐way immer-sion programs produce students who are notonly bilingual but are also academically pre-pared in the essential core areas as definedby state accountability measures. Whileparents may be convinced of the long‐termbenefits of a bilingual program, they too areconcerned that their children not lag behindpeers who receive their schooling entirely inEnglish.

The results from this study show thatstudents who are taught in Mandarin formuch of the school day generally achieveat levels on California‐mandated tests inEnglish language arts, writing, math, andscience that are as high as, or sometimeshigher than, their non‐immersion peerswho attend the same school. These resultsare reassuring because they demonstratethat, when students receive instructionin two languages, they are not only devel-oping as bilinguals but also do not fallbehind their peers on the essential con-tent. These findings also support recentreports that show cognitive advantagesdue to bilingual instruction (Bialystok,Craik, Green, & Gollan, 2009; Kluger,2013).

It is important to note that this study isnot without its limitations. A limitation ofall naturalistic studies such as this one isthe relatively small sample size in eachgrade. This was especially true in the fifthgrade, where, due to attrition, the samplecontained only 14 of the original 20 stu-dents. However, despite this problem,many of the findings were statistically sig-nificant. The study is also limited due tothe use of program/teacher‐developedand teacher‐administered assessments of

Mandarin, a problem that was unavoidablefor two reasons. First, due to the shortageof Mandarin‐speaking professionals atthe school, it was necessary to have theteachers conduct the assessments of Manda-rin. Second, there is a shortage of standard-ized assessment instruments for use inelementary Mandarin/English two‐way im-mersion programs particularly becausethe STAMP 4Se is an online assessmentmeasure developed for older learnersand thus could only be administered withfifth‐grade students. While the potential ofteacher bias in the assessment processshould be recognized, the correlationsbetween the teacher‐reported assessmentresults and the fifth‐grade students’ scoreson the standardized STAMP 4Se suggestthat teacher bias was not a significant sourceof concern. Ideally, future research withMandarin/English programs will employassessments that are independently devel-oped and that can be used beginning inkindergarten.

ConclusionThis article presents five years of perfor-mance data from the first cohort of studentswho completed a two‐wayMandarin immer-sion program. Results suggest that, althoughMandarin is a non‐alphabetic language, En-glish‐dominant students can attain desirablelevels of linguistic performance in Mandarinwhile heritage speakers are able to maintainand enhance their listening and speakingskills in their home language while simulta-neously developing important literacy skills.An equally important finding is that whencompared to non‐Mandarin immersionpeers from the same school, Mandarin im-mersion students performed as well on stan-dardized tests that were given in English andthat assessed English language arts and oth-er core content areas even though they hadmuch less instructional time in English. Thisis particularly informative for educators, pa-rents, administrators, and policy makerswho are interested in preparing studentsfor today’s global economy and society.

Foreign Language Annals � VOL. 46, NO. 4 675

AcknowledgmentsThe authors gratefully acknowledge the sup-port of a FLAP grant awarded by the U.S.Department of Education that providedfunding for the evaluation study of thisMandarin immersion program. In addition,the authors are appreciative of the contri-butions of several individuals who collabo-rated with the authors to successfullyconduct this study, including district‐and school‐level administrators; teacherswho taught in the program; and the stu-dents who actively acquired Chinese lan-guage, culture, and literacy skills. We arealso thankful to the program’s parent com-munity who enthusiastically supported thestudy’s evaluation activities. The authorsalso wish to thank the Foreign LanguageAnnals’ editor and reviewers, whose en-couragement and comments strengthenedour article.

Notes1. Chinese includes two major common

languages: Mandarin and Cantonese. AsMandarin is the standardized languageused in China, it has become increasinglypopular worldwide. In this article,Chinese and Mandarin are used inter-changeably.

2. The data on the cohort of the fourthgrade in 2012 could not be retrievedbecause of the unexpected departure ofthe classroom teacher.

3. In order to compute a Spearman rankcorrelation, five levels were created basedon STAMP4Se scores. Levels were as fol-lows: 0–4, 5–8, 9–12, 13–16, and 17–20.

4. A Welch t test for unequal variances wasused for this comparison.

References

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Fortson, B.W. (2004). Indo‐European languageand culture: An introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.

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the Chinese Language Teachers Association, 40,1–28.

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Submitted April 2, 2013

Accepted October 2, 2013

APPENDIX

Mandarin Proficiency AssessmentOral Proficiency Rubric. In order to assess oral proficiency, a storytelling method wasused whereby the teacher showed the student a picture and asked if the child could do thefollowing (see table below). The proficiency level of the studentwas determined by the accuracywith which s/he performed the task. There were six levels for assigning an oral proficiency.

Reading Proficiency Rubric. Reading proficiency was determined by requiring stu-dents to read characters, sentences, and paragraphs. The level designates how proficient thestudent was in reading Chinese.

Level Description

1 Name the objects in the picture: What do you see in the picture?2 Describe the objects in the picture (color, shape, size).3 Describe the story in the picture: What is happening in the picture?4 Think about the story and describe how and why something happened and what will

happen next.5 Answer all four questions with supporting details, accurate pronunciation, and fluency;

make almost no grammatical errors; sentence structure is varied.6 Use connection words for extended description of the pictures; use vivid descriptive

words and some idioms to enhance meaning; story has a clear progress of ideasincluding clear beginning, middle, and end.

Level Vocabulary Sentence/Paragraph

1 50 characters/words N/A2 50 characters/words A few simple sentences on a topic3 50 characters/words A few longer sentences on the same topic4 50 characters/words A short paragraph on the same topic (five to six sentences)5 50 characters/words A reader was used with 91‐character story6 50 characters/words 99‐character story7 � 290‐character story8 – 274‐character story

Foreign Language Annals � VOL. 46, NO. 4 677

� Students attaining reading proficiency levels 1, 2, and 3 were required to master the 150most basic characters/words before they advanced to level 4. The 50 sentences/words ateach level were selected based on their difficulty and frequency level—as a studentprogressed up the levels, the characters became more difficult because of their complexityand frequency. Level 1 students were not required to read sentences. Level 4 students andhigher went directly to sentence/paragraph reading, but continued to include additionalvocabulary words.

� For characters/words, students had to score at or above 80% on accuracy and comprehen-sion to be able to move to the next level. For sentences, there were certain characters/wordsthat students were allowed to miss. Students were also allowed to make a mistake in oneadditional character/word to be able to move up to the next level.

� The sentences/paragraphs at the various difficulty levels were all based on the same topicbut were sequential in terms of length and the difficulty level of lexicon and syntax.Teachers could add levels onto the list along with their curriculum and students’ languageprogress.

� In order to assign a proficiency level to students who were just beginning Mandarininstruction, it was necessary to make an adjustment in level 1. Accordingly, studentswho scored between 0 and 19 correct in level 1 characters were marked as level A, andstudents who scored 20–39 correct were marked as level B.

Writing Rubric Starting From 2012. Note: The assessment rubric of STAMP4Se isavailable at http://www.avantassessment.com/sites/default/files/STAMP4Se%20Benchmarks%20and%20Rubric%20Guide%202012%20Mar.pdf

1 2 3 4

Content Off topic; most of the

information is

irrelevant or

unintelligible.

Partially addresses

the topics;

demonstrates basic

concepts/ideas but

lacks detail.

Addresses the topics;

may include some

supporting details.

Fully addresses the

topics with

appropriate and

concrete details.

Vocabulary Limited word choice

(most could be the

hint words); may

substitute with

English words;

incorrect and

confusing words

are frequent.

May use basic words

and/or substitute

with pinyin; some

words may be

overused;

incorrect and

confusing words

are obvious.

Appropriate use of

words; some

varieties in word

choices; rare use of

English/pinyin

substitution; errors

are few.

Appropriate use of

descriptive and

vivid vocabulary;

may include

idioms that

enhance meaning;

almost no errors.

Organization Repetitive simple

sentences,

fragments, or

isolated words;

sequence of

information is

difficult to follow.

Scattered information;

individual

sentences may be

understandable

but lack coherence

for the whole

piece.

There is a main idea,

but may include

disorganized

details; may use

some connection

words, but

transition may not

flow with the

whole text.

Clear progression of

ideas (clear

beginning, middle,

and end) and

well‐connected

discourse;

appropriate usage

of connection

words.

(Continued)

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1 2 3 4

Mechanics

(Punctuation/

Grammar)

Many grammatical

errors; may

frequently

miss punctuation;

awkward sentence

structures

significantly

interfere with

meaning.

Noticeable inaccurate

punctuation/

grammatical

errors, but they do

not cause

significant

misunderstanding.

Few inaccurate

punctuation and

grammatical

errors; sentence

structures are mostly

appropriate.

Almost no incorrect

characters or

punctuation and

grammatical

errors; sentence

structures are

varied.

Foreign Language Annals � VOL. 46, NO. 4 679

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