China Tree Chinese Culture and Language School is proud to announce our partnership with the Ding Hao Chinese School in Radnor, PA.  The Ding Hao Chinese School was founded by Mrs. Betty Foo over 10 years ago.  Betty Foo has over 20 years of teaching experience and has developed a wonderful curriculum and teacher training which allows every child to learn the Chinese language in an engaging and interactive environment.  We will be using the Living Mandarin curriculum and our teachers will be trained by the Ding Hao Chinese School in Radnor, PA.

WHAT IS THE METHOD?   Ding Hao which means “the best.”

Mandarin is taught using the Pin-Yin system of Romanization. Culture is emphasized through arts and crafts, games, music, festival celebrations, calligraphy, history and geography. Multiple levels of classes are offered. American teaching methods and small class size (averaging 8-12 children) facilitate student participation and creativity. Our goal is to make the experience fun for your child, not to teach through rote memorization and repetition.

Regarding character recognition, for instance, the method is to show the origins of the characters and how they evolved from pictographs to characters. Ultimately, the Chinese language skill is taught through the following sensory progression: 1) listening; 2) speaking; 3) reading; 4) writing the character.
 
Our curriculum is a "spiral curriculum," in which your child continually builds upon what he or she has already learned. The teacher will revisit the curriculum in the form of review by teaching the same content in different ways each subsequent year. The Ding Hao Chinese School utilizes a spiral curriculum, with the first semester each year including a review of the past classes, and the 2nd semester introducing new vocabulary and characters. Simplified vs. Complicated (or Traditional) Chinese characters:  Simplified characters are used in Mainland China while Complicated are used in Taiwan.  Ding Hao teaches complicated characters, not Simplified, and focuses on a subset of the characters based on pictographs, or pictures, to aid in the ease of learning/teaching.

China Tree Chinese Culture and Language School provides the opportunity for children to discover the wonderful Chinese language and culture in an academic setting. Many of our children began a wonderful journey from China and have now become a blend of Chinese and American cultures. We hope to give these kids a chance to develop their unique identities and to promote confidence and success as they mature and grow.  In addition, learning the Chinese language is in high demand in our culture today and we at China Tree welcome everyone to join us at our school to learn this awesome language!

A Special Thank You

We would like to express our sincere appreciation for the support and confidence Kennesaw State University (The Global Initiatives Group) and The Confucius Institute at KSU have put in our school for the upcoming school year.