Mandarin at Las Lomas
Starting during the 2018-19 school year, there will be a new language class being taught at Las Lomas that every student can take. Most students go with the typical Spanish, French or maybe even Japanese class when choosing a language to learn in High School, but with Mandarin being the most spoken language in the world, with about 1.2 billion people who speak some form of Mandarin, it can open some opportunities to get a profitable job overseas that requires Mandarin.
However, I personally think that this class won’t pick up much traction in the next year or two in comparison with the next several years since most students already taking Spanish, French, or Japanese wouldn’t want to abandon their current language. When new freshmen arrive at Las Lomas, they might choose the Mandarin path. It is currently unconfirmed whether there will be a Mandarin 2 class in the future, but it is likely that over the next few years Mandarin will become a recognized and popular class here at Las Lomas due to the usefulness of the Mandarin language.
I wanted to know what students at Las Lomas thought about the addition of the Mandarin language to the curriculum. “I understand why Mandarin is useful, but I wish Las Lomas would have a German class, like other nearby schools do,” says sophomore Jason Rich. Obviously, not everybody has the same opinions about the topic, but native Mandarin speaker Eric Zhang says, “I am glad that Las Lomas is recognizing my home country.” With the varying opinions from students, there is currently no way to tell how popular a class Mandarin will turn out to be, only time will tell.
