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For many years, Masterman only had two foreign language classes: French and Spanish. If students wanted to learn another foreign language, they had to take classes outside Masterman. But with the flood of changes that occured this year came the addition of Chinese to Masterman’s foreign language curriculum.
But, what about high school? Unfortun ately, these changes didn’t happen when all the high schoolers were in middle school. Student Alvin Pan (11-3) says, “It was really disappointing that we didn’t get the chance to take a Chinese class before we got to high school.” Thus, high schoolers have to stick with either French or Spanish as the sole foreign language they can learn at Masterman… or so it seems.
Photo courtesy of Dante Daniel (11-2)
Thankfully, Eric Li (11-4) understood that many students had the desire to learn a different language aside from French or Spanish and decided to take matters into his own hands. Li established a Chinese club for high schoolers called CCP, “which stands for Chinese Communist Party,” he joked during the interview. “No. It is actually called the Chinese Cultural Party.”
This addition is crucial to changing the overall culture of Masterman as a whole. Prior to CCP’s founding, one of the club’s members, Andy Luu (11-2), had tried to learn multiple languages like Norwegian and Albanian outside of school. “Learning a language is one of the most gratifying experiences that one can pursue,” Andy says. “We need more language clubs like CCP in Masterman.” Andy, along with all the other CCP members, are enthusiastic about this opportunity to gather in a safe, friendly environment for the common important cause of learning a language like Chinese.
The Chinese Cultural Party club has three main teachers: Eric Li, Katrina Chen (11-4), and Chris Ji (11-2). The club meets every Tuesday and Wednesday during Pathways, and members come together to learn and study Chinese. But it isn’t an easy task for the main teachers to educate everyone on the Chinese language. “Learning Chinese is hard,” Eric said. “Yes, it is just like learning any other language, but there is also the added difficulty of written Chinese being in characters, not words. Chinese also has tones (accents), and for Westerners who are not used to tones, it can be difficult for them to speak Chinese correctly.” The goal of this club is ultimately to learn Chinese, so there is a deep level of commitment needed from the students and teachers alike in order for the club to work. “I always believed that the willingness to teach is accompanied by the willingness to learn,” Eric says.
Eric and the other teachers all hope that the Chinese Cultural Party club can be an inspiration for others to establish their own language clubs, and create a more culturally and lingually diverse Masterman.
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