SJCS will help our students to master about 2,500 Chinese characters after 12 years of study. Students are also expected to be able to speak, understand spoken Chinese, read and write in Chinese in their daily lives. Besides the Chinese language, SJCS also exposes our students to a micro Chinese environment at the school through academic activities, cultural events, and a good variety of extra-curriculum (focusing on heritage may scare away those non-Chinese families). 

Starting from this calendar year (2008-2009), SJCS teaches both traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese to our students. All students are required to be able to recognize both traditional and simplified Chinese, while the students and their parents decide either form of writing based on their background. Our goal is to provide our students with necessary Chinese language knowledge that would allow them to communicate freely in any of the mandarin-spoken countries around the world. 

It is not as difficult as people think. Only about 20% of Chinese characters have different versions. We teach students the rules to derive simplified Chinese from traditional ones. This covers a major part of the 20%. Thanks to computer technology today, we can easily do conversions between traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese with just a few mouse clicks. Students have been well-receiving the new adoption of both forms at school and are glad that they have options to learn both. 

Beginning in the 2016 school year, only Pinyin is taught and used in the school as we recognize all of the students will sooner or later need to learn this anyway for various practical reasons living in America today.  Pinyin will be first introduced to students in the 2nd grade. Prior to 2nd grade, teachers will systematically expose young students to Chinese focusing on speaking, pronunciation, character recognition, writing strokes, phrases, and sentence structure. Introducing Pinyin later in 2nd grade will minimize the chance that students confuse Pinyin with English phonics. 

Yes, our students can transfer from CSL classes to regular classes once they are ready for total immersion in Chinese learning and vice versa if they prefer to learn Chinese with the help of English instruction. 

SJCS has 32 school days per academic year on Saturdays. On each school day, the class time for the first session (pre-K to 5th grades) is: 8:30 AM - 10:20 AM; the second session (6th to 12th grades) is: 10:40 AM to 12:30 PM. Both sessions have a 10-minute recess between two 50-minute periods. We have summer and winter breaks as local public schools. 

There are a lot of differences between SJCS and other private tutoring classes and after-school programs. Here is a list of a few things that other programs do not provide.

• We have classes for all grades on the same morning. If you have more than one kid in different grades, they can go to different classes at the same time, or in some cases, in the same morning. It is convenient for parents.

• Our curriculum is well designed so that we can prepare our students for the AP Chinese exam in higher grades. This will better equip them for college applications.

• San Jose Unified School District recognizes our curriculum for high school credits.

• We regularly send our teachers to training workshops so that they are always updated on the most current trend in Chinese education. This will benefit our students in the long run.

SJCS follows the Standards for Foreign Language Learning and National Assessment Educational Progress Framework and applies the principles of 5Cs.

1. Communication in 3 modes: Interpersonal, Interpretive and Presentational;

2. Cultures;

3. Connections that links Chinese learning to other subjects;

4. Comparisons (compare Chinese culture to other cultures);

5. Communities that help students to use the Chinese language in their daily lives. 

Please refer to this page for more detail

There is an optional Placement test available, where we can assess your Chinese level to place you in the most appropriate class. This is optional only, so if you already know which grade you want to register for, there is no need for a placement test.  But if ever in the future you want to consider changing grade level, you may also request for a placement test.

Please arrange with our academic director via email for when to take the placement academic2@sanjosechineseschool.org

1. The tuition fee consists of Tuition, Class supply fee, Book fee, New student registration fee for new students, Late registration fee for old student, and optional Service point buyout.

For current school year, here is the the break down:
For 2023-2024 school year, here is breakdown:

• Tuition: $410

• Class supply Fee: $10

• Book Fee: $30

• New Student Registration Fee(New student Only): $30

• Late Registration Fee (Old student Only): $30

• Service point buyout $150 (Optional)

Yes, we require parents to serve 20 service points per school year (1 point per hour). Our school is a co-op school administered and operated by parents. The school relies on parents’ participation to provide our students with a safe and rewarding environment for Chinese learning. Parents can volunteer via taking class rep positions, board members positions, school staff positions, or sign uYp for operational positions such as security patrols, snack stand helpers, or participate in organizing school events and activities. We highly prefer and need parents to volunteer to keep the school running, alternatively you can also buyout service points ($15/point) when you register or fill out our buyout form later.

For Service points sign up, please go to this site in the first couple weeks of the school year to register for volunteering to get service points. 

Our school has a free Homework Center that starts on the second week of the new school year and continues throughout the whole school year. The SJCS Homework Center is available to the students on a first come, first served basis via email ta@sanjosechineseschool.org to sign-up. The Homework Center is quite high in demand based on past experience, and we are trying our best, with the limited resources, to give our students in need an opportunity to obtain help. For each sign-up, you can only get one help. If you need help for another week, then you need to sign up again. Simply put, you cannot block the whole month by just signing up once. Besides getting help from the Homework Center, we strongly encourage you to work with your child and the teacher to maximize the learning results. 

Please pay the tuition via the below payment methods

• Zelle Pay to accountant@sanjosechineseschool.org (Please indicate student name, class ID, family ID when processing Zelle payment.)

• Cheques (payable to SJCS) and mail to P.O. Box 20516, San Jose, CA 95160

• Please allow at least 48 hours (and upto 1 week) for payment to be updated on our database.   

• The family ID nomenclature is: <Student’s last name> - <Last 4 digit of primary phone number>

• Example: doe-1234

Please refer to our school calendar on our website here.