Slater Stanley is only 14 but already has big plans. He intends to have mastered Chinese by the time he finishes high school, then wants to head to Beijing for college.
"I don't know why I'm interested in Chinese culture," said Slater, of Newport Beach. "I think I was just born with it."
As a student at the Irvine Chinese School, he has certainly come to the right place. A national security effort is underway to create more Chinese and Arabic speakers, and the Irvine school is a focus of that effort.
Irvine has become a growing center of Chinese culture in Southern California. There are about 30,000 residents of Chinese descent here, city officials say. There are Chinese supermarkets, plays, operas, Buddhist temples and a cultural center that is one of the largest in the U.S. More Chinese Americans live in Irvine than any other city in the county.
The school, at the newly opened, $12-million, 44,000-square-foot South Coast Chinese Cultural Center, is the country's largest site for the Startalk program. Funded by the Department of Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Startalk aims to lure students into learning languages deemed critical to national security and the economy.
About 250 students are enrolled in Chinese immersion classes in Irvine. Representatives of the Startalk program visited the site Thursday to check on its progress.
"In the U.S., foreign languages have always taken a back seat to other disciplines, and we want to change that," said Betsy Hart, associate director of the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland and head of Startalk. "This is a pilot year, and we are testing to see which models will be most effective."
In one room, beginning students were learning basic characters, in another more advanced children were typing in Chinese. A few weeks ago, one class debated abortion in Chinese.
The difference between immersion classes and regular courses is the intensity. Some classes are held entirely in Chinese.
The students, who are mostly in high school, have various reasons for studying the language.
"I took Chinese because we adopted a Chinese girl and I wanted to help her keep her language," said Timothy Johnson, 15, of Mission Viejo. "I learned a lot more here compared to high school because in high school my teacher barely spoke Chinese."
Cynthia Wang's Chinese teacher wouldn't let her speak English, which she said has improved her conversational skills.
