On May 27, Healing Roots Online School (HROS) had its very first in-person gathering in Burlington, Vermont. Students, parents, teachers and administrators were excited to meet in person; those unable to make the journey to Burlington were still able to join the fun through Google Meet. After brief introductions, the group talked about their experiences learning online for the past year. Students had the opportunity to share their end-of-year projects. Jason Shi, Program Manager from SPIRAL, also joined the meet-up.
HROS students have been learning Mandarin through SPIRAL’s online Have Fun with Chinese class. Two native-speaking teachers – Longjing Chu and Christine Hightower – have provided instruction. Through 28 weekly classes this past academic year, students have learned more than 200 Mandarin words and 100 sentences and had conversations on 24 different topics!
SPIRAL and HROS plan to work even more closely in the upcoming ‘22-23 school year. A much larger number of Mandarin classes will be available to HROS students in grades K-8. What’s more, SPIRAL and HROS plan to create opportunities for the students to have direct online interaction with students in other countries. International educational trips may even be planned for the future!
