In a Primary School classroom, First and Second Grade students count in Mandarin, practice greetings, play games, sing songs and learn about Chinese traditions. During a recent lesson celebrating the Moon Festival, students spent several class periods creating their own light-up lanterns, picking up new vocabulary along the way.

For Upper School Mandarin Chinese Teacher Ming Hodgson, the lessons represent a milestone more than two decades in the making.

“I’ve been wanting to bring Chinese to our younger students for more than 20 years,” Hodgson said. “We finally made it happen.”

For the first time this year, Viewpoint is offering Chinese to students in First and Second Grade through a new pilot program led by Hodgson, who has spent more than two decades helping build the School’s Chinese program.

Hodgson was originally hired to create Viewpoint’s Chinese program, beginning with Chinese 1A for Seventh Grade students and Chinese 1 for Upper School students. From there, she added new levels as students progressed, eventually building a program that today spans Sixth Grade through AP Chinese, with 72 students studying Chinese across Viewpoint.

As the program grew, Hodgson said she wanted to give students the opportunity to begin much earlier.

“The earlier, the easier,” she said. “You acquire language more naturally at a younger age.”

That philosophy is shaping the new Primary School classes, where 13 students are learning Chinese through an approach designed specifically for younger learners.

Rather than focusing immediately on reading and writing, Hodgson introduces students to speaking, listening and Chinese culture. And while her Upper School classes run for 70 minutes, the Primary School classes are 30 minutes, requiring her to rethink how she structures each lesson.

“The key for me is to change activities,” Hodgson said. “The activities are different, but what we’re learning is the same. We’re just repeating it in different ways.”

Throughout a class period, students might practice greetings and counting before moving into a game, song, short video or hands-on activity. Hodgson also incorporates coloring, drawing, movement, stories, food and traditional games, giving students multiple ways to engage with the language and culture.

The classes also bring together students with varying levels of familiarity with Chinese. Some speak or hear the language at home, while others are encountering it for the first time.

“I’m going at their pace,” Hodgson said. “I’m learning what they enjoy and finding activities that keep them engaged.”

While the Primary School program is still in its first weeks, Hodgson is already thinking about what could come next. Her hope is to gradually expand Chinese into additional grade levels, creating a pathway that could eventually allow students to study the language continuously from Viewpoint’s earliest grades through Upper School.

“The most exciting thing would be to have Chinese from Transitional Kindergarten all the way through Twelfth Grade,” Hodgson said. “That’s my goal.”