Sisters Elementary School teacher Eva Xu helps a young class learn Mandarin Chinese recently. Vivian Zhang, in background at right, is a teacher at Sisters High School.

The Sisters School District’s Mandarin Chinese program expanded this year with the addition of two native-language instructors.

Vivian Zhang and Eva Xu were brought to Sisters by the Confucius Institute at Portland State University. The center works with the China National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, a Chinese governmental group that promotes Chinese language instruction across the world by funding visiting teachers. Prior to coming to Sisters, Xu taught English in a Chinese college while Zhang taught English at a high school. They have funding to teach in Sisters for three years.

“It’s basically a freebie for the district,” said David Perkins, who started Sisters’ Chinese program when he began teaching at Sisters High School in 2008.

“In a small high school, scheduling is an issue, and I have kids who want to take it but can’t. Having extra teachers will help free it up,” Perkins added.

Zhang is working with Perkins at the high school level and will also soon take on middle-school students. Xu cycles through the elementary school, meeting with every class of students. Last year Perkins taught five levels of Chinese involving middle- and high-schoolers. His five levels, however, were squeezed into three periods.

“It’s really great starting kids at a younger age. They can really nail the language,” Perkins said. “Chinese, unlike English, is a tonal language with four tones. The younger kids pick it up so easily, while in high school, it can be a bit of a struggle. Whenever they come across a word they don’t know, they switch to the second tone, which is what English speakers use to ask questions.”

Perkins has seen students go on to study Chinese in college after leaving Sisters. He also frequently gets requests from parents outside the district to tutor students in the language.

Despite his success, he thinks there’s a real benefit to having native speakers.

“Especially at the higher level, there are just some things I may not know,” he said. “I’m just a white guy who knows the language, but they know idioms and slang.”

In a class of third- and fourth-graders, Xu led her students in a series of exercises, practicing the Chinese words for hello and goodbye — “ni hao” and “zai jian.” The students marched across the room in a circle to a Chinese song.

When the music stopped, they’d turn around and shake the hand of a classmate, practicing the words. The students were also led in Chinese language versions of popular songs, such as “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”

“I am very tired at the end of the day,” Xu said. “Every class is different. I teach the same thing during the day but change it for each class.”

Both Xu and Zhang said they enjoy living in Sisters.

“We’ve gone hiking and gone to church to meet new friends,” Zhang said. “We’ve been to Suttle Lake, and it was beautiful.”

Xu added they are taking many photographs and “sending them back to our friends and family.”

Perkins hopes having Xu and Zhang will help turn Sisters into a Chinese language destination for students.

“I’m 63, and at some point I’ll ride off into the sunset,” he said. “But we hope to hire a full-time teacher at some point. The board and (Superintendent) Jim Golden are very supportive of the whole program.”