In another classroom down the hall, children are sitting quietly, using the abacus to calculate the answers to a math test. "San shi miao"—30 seconds, their teacher says. In the gym, elementary-age girls are using sticks to practice a Chinese folk dance, with traditional music blasting in the background.

In front of the school, parent volunteers are manning tables, selling scrips, passing around local Chinese newspapers and distributing schedules. And out on the field, the sound of the coach's whistle pierces the sounds of boys and girls playing soccer.

This is not Taiwan, but Leland High School on any given Saturday morning during the school year. Every week, the campus is transformed into San Jose Chinese School, which has for three decades educated local youth.

Here, Chinese and non-Chinese children, from preschool to high school, are offered courses in the language—which include lessons on the culture and history—along with electives such as traditional brush art, tai-chi, Chinese chess and yoga. The school also has its own soccer team, which plays in a league against teams from other Chinese schools.

"Everybody treats this Chinese school as a community," says Ming Wan Hsu, an Almaden resident and school parent. She says the school functions as a social network, not only for the children who attend the classes, but also for the teachers and the countless parent volunteers, who use the Saturday mornings to build and maintain friendships. "I always laugh to myself," Hsu says. "The Caucasians and the Koreans go to church. We go to Chinese school."

Learning mothers' language

In 1974, a group of a dozen immigrant parents started the Chinese school in an Almaden Valley home. "We originally started because we wanted American-born Chinese kids to learn their mothers' language," says principal Hway-Jen Chen. The school grew through the years, first meeting at John Muir Middle School before moving to Leland, and now has 550 students enrolled. According to Chen, approximately 90 percent of those 550 are Almaden Valley residents.

One of the students who lives in the area is teacher Wu's son, Albert. "He has a Chinese face. I don't want him to not speak, not read. But we don't pressure him to have the best Chinese," Wu says of enrolling her child in the school. "We just want him to know his roots. Coming here is like planting a seed."

Nina Cheung is a former principal of the school, and her youngest daughter takes classes at the school. She agrees that attending San Jose Chinese School isn't just about learning Chinese.

"Of course, we wanted [our daughter] to learn the language, but we also wanted her to have some Chinese friends and get to know the culture," she says. "Now, I think she's more interested in Chinese things. She feels more of a connection."

For Leland sophomore Max Ho, Hsu's son, going to Chinese school not only maintains his fluency in Mandarin but also opens up a social world. Ho says his closest friends now are those from Chinese school. "I knew them already from Leland, but in Chinese school, we talk more," he says.

A majority of the students at San Jose Chinese School are like Ho—their parents are immigrants, they speak some Chinese at home and, as a result, they are enrolled in classes that teach Chinese using a traditional alphabet. But the school also offers Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) courses for the students who don't speak Chinese at home.

None of the CSL students are from homes where both parents are from Taiwan, says teacher Ai-Ling Hsieh, an Almaden Valley resident who has been with the school for 20 years. Some have one immigrant Chinese parent, with the other parent a non-Asian; others are from Vietnamese or Japanese or mixed-Asian families, while others are born to ABCs, American-Born Chinese. "I say my students are bananas—yellow on the outside, white on the inside," Hsieh says.

CSL teachers use pinyin—a phonetic system using English letters—to teach Chinese words. Pinyin has become a popular method of teaching Chinese in recent years, which attracts both adults and children, Hsieh says. "In CSL class, sometimes the parents stay to learn, too."

Praise-driven teaching

Hsieh says, however, that an emphasis on book learning is not the most important thing in her classes. "I want my kids to love to come. I want them to love learning. I don't want them to compete between themselves," she says. Instead of teaching in a militant, traditional Chinese style, Hsieh tries to emulate the "praise-driven" American way of teaching.

"I just want them to be interested," Hsieh says. "And a lot of my students, when they get to college, they still choose to take Chinese classes."

One San Jose Chinese School graduate who has chosen to stay involved with the school is Michelle Shih, a CSL teacher. Shih, who was born and raised in Almaden Valley, says she could speak but not read or write Chinese when she started attending Chinese school in her early teens.

In her senior year, Shih's teacher asked her to become the teacher's aide in the class, and the year after, she had a class of her own. Shih teaches second-level CSL and tries to make class interesting and fun by playing games as a teaching tool.

"I think it's really important for Chinese kids to know their culture and to be able to speak. Like a lot of my friends, they really regret not going to Chinese school," says the Leland High graduate. "Some of the parents, they're ABCs too, so they sit in class and take notes."

Now at San José State University and hoping to earn a teaching credential, Shih says, "I really like the kids, and to see that they're learning something, it makes me feel good."

"It's a very challenging job," Wu says of teaching Chinese to children. "Every child's learning style is different. Their backgrounds are different. You have to think about what style works."

Teaching second-graders, Wu says, is radically different from teaching her middle-school class. While the goal in the lower grades is to "stuff as much into their brains as you can," maintenance of the students' existing fluency is the point of her other class.

Kids willing to try

"The older they are, the less willing they are to use Chinese to express themselves. So you have to ask yourself, 'How do I make it more interesting for them?' Our classroom environment is very friendly," Wu says. She tries to teach her middle-school students Chinese values, culture and history, instead of merely emphasizing the language. "To them, how much you learn Chinese isn't the most important thing," she says. "It's how you view things."

"I've talked to teachers, and they think the lower grades are more essential," says parent volunteer Mimi Su. "They need to build that foundation." Su says her experience with her two children is that the teachers stress students enjoying themselves over earning top grades.

"You get to make friends" by going to Chinese school, says Karen Leung, an eighth-grader at Dartmouth Middle School. She adds that Wu's class teaches her about the holidays, such as Chinese New Year, Moon Festival and Dragon Boat Festival. "We actually have to take notes this year. And we have to write essays," Leung says, which makes the learning process more like the upper grades at American school.

Arielle Chen Magtira, Leung's classmate, says while she is "pretty fluent" in the language, attending Chinese school allows her to communicate with others better and has long-term effects.

"Especially if you go to China or something," Leung adds. "And it's another language for school requirements."

Through Chinese school, fourth-grader I-Ling Hsiung has learned about the history of her favorite holiday, Chinese New Year. Hsiung attends Simonds Elementary School and started at San Jose Chinese School when she was in kindergarten. "I like the classes the best because I can learn a lot," she says.

While teachers and students are the key roles at San Jose Chinese School, the unpaid helpers are essential in the operation of the school. "Our school is a real nonprofit. Most of the people involved are truly volunteers," says former principal Cheung. Each student is charged tuition, but that money pays for using the facilities at Leland, school supplies and the teachers' stipends.

According to Huang, a good number of parents treat the Chinese school as a Saturday morning babysitting service, merely coming by Leland to drop off and pick up, but many parent volunteers perform the essential administrative activities and coordinate security, parking control, discipline, academic grading, tech support and fundraising programs.

"The support of the parents is very, very important," Hsu said.

Three decades of school

It is entirely due to the parents that the Chinese school has flourished and is preparing to celebrate its 30th anniversary later this school year. Principal Chen says there will be an invitation-only formal banquet—with invitations being sent to San Jose City Council members, U.S. Rep. Mike Honda and board members of the San Jose Unified School District—as well as an all-school family picnic in the spring. In addition, volunteers and past and present school administrators are doing research to put together a 30-year commemorative yearbook.

At the same time, Chen says she hopes the school will become more heavily involved in the community. Some of the students enrolled in dance and other performance courses occasionally perform at cultural events in Almaden Valley schools, but a plan is on the table to explore a partnership with Leland. Leland doesn't offer Chinese courses, Chen says, and San Jose Chinese School could step in and allow Leland students to take classes as a means of meeting foreign-language requirements.

And, Hsieh points out, with research indicating that Chinese is one of the most-used languages in the global business economy, offering the language at Leland should have widespread appeal.

"Chinese doesn't only have to be taught to Chinese kids," Hsieh says.

San Jose Chinese School meets at Leland High School from 1:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Saturdays. For more information, visit http://www.sjcs-net.org or call 408.268.5537.