Posted at: 10/23/2009 6:11 PM | KSAX.com
By: Anthony Kiekow
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Alexandria Students Expanding Horizons with Mandarin Chinese  

Alexandria, Minn. - At Discovery Middle School students are learning China's most common dialect, Mandarin Chinese.  

All 8th grade students take Mandarin Chinese as an exploratory class. It is available as an elective course for students in the 9th through 12th grade.

Several students have elected to explore Mandarin Chinese further.  

"It's the best class ever. All the other kids are jealous of us," 9th grade Discovery student Emma Lawrence said.

Another thing that might make the other kids jealous is the leg up the students are getting from being bilingual.

According to 9th grade Discovery student Megan Orpen, being bilingual is necessary because we communicate with China so much.

Some of the students might even do more than just communicate with China. "I want to travel and in order to travel you have to know the language," 9th grade Discovery student Kathryn Dusterhoft said.

Written for the Web by Anthony Kiekow. 

akiekow@ksax.com