Sir Martin Sorrell, the Sinophile chief executive of the advertising¹ conglomerate² WPP, was at Kensington Wade³, Britain’s first primary school to offer full Mandarin⁴ immersion⁵ for its pupils, on a recent evening, for a reception to celebrate the Chinese mid-autumn festival.

最近的一个晚上，广告业巨头WPP集团亲华总裁马丁·索雷尔先生到肯辛顿韦德小学参加了一场招待会庆祝中国的中秋节。肯辛顿韦德小学是英国第一所为孩子提供完全的沉浸式普通话教育的小学。

Sir Martin offered assurance to the gaggle of parents that the ￡17,000-a-year tuition they had shelled out for at the newly opened school was money well spent.

马丁先生向聚集在一起的父母们保证，他们向这所新学校所支付的1年17000英镑的学费是值得的。

For those parents inclined to start their children early, there is Hatching Dragons, the UK ’s first Mandarin-English nursery. It claims to “foster fluency⁶” in both languages by age five.

对于那些倾向于让孩子早点开始学习普通话的父母来说，英国还有Hatching Dragons（望子成龙）这所学校，这是英国第一所提供中英双语教育的幼儿园。该幼儿园称，孩子们到五岁的时候就可以“流利掌握”两门语言。

“I’ve got enough evidence that if a child joins us at six months and stays until they are five, 50 hours a week, they will be orally fluent,” said Cennydd John, who founded Hatching Dragons in 2015, after the birth of his son. If you doubt him, says Mr John, go check his YouTube videos.

“我有足够的证据证明如果一个孩子在六个月大的时候来到我们这里，并且每周在我们这儿待50个小时，直到五岁，他们就可以流利地说中文了，”森内德·约翰说道，他于2015年他儿子出生后创办了Hatching Dragons幼儿园。如果你对此表示怀疑，约翰先生说道，你可以去他的YouTube视频专辑看看。

“Chinese is the emerging language because China is emerging as a political and economic power,” said Antonella Sorace, a linguistics⁷ professor. “It’s regarded as a good investment.”

“汉语是一门新兴的语言，因为中国正成为政治和经济领域的新兴力量，”语言学教授安东内拉·索瑞斯说道。“学汉语可以说是一项很好的投资。”

Kensington Wade is named after Sir Thomas Wade, a 19th century British diplomat⁸ who produced one of the first English-Mandarin textbooks. Its inaugural⁹ class of 15 students arrived last month. Three were fluent Mandarin speakers while about half had no Mandarin.

肯辛顿韦德小学是以托马斯·韦德先生的名字来命名的。韦德先生是19世纪英国的外交官，他创作了最早的中英文教科书之一。该小学的第一批学生于上个月来到了学校，共15人。其中三人可以说流利的普通话，而约有一半的学生一点也不会讲普通话。

Its two classrooms, in an existing academy, are unremarkable, with toys and early reading books. On closer inspection¹⁰, it becomes apparent that one is entirely¹¹ in English and the other in Mandarin. One teacher is British, the other Chinese. The children move between them and their corresponding worlds during the day. The hope is that by age 11, when they graduate, they will be fluent in both.

该小学在一所现存的学院中有两个教室，不太引人注意，教室里有各种玩具和早教读物。仔细观察一下就会发现，其中一个教室显然是完全用来教授英语课程的，而另一个教室则用来教授普通话课程。其中一个老师是英国人，另一个老师是中国人。在一天之中，孩子们在两位老师之间以及他们相应的世界里切换。该小学希望，当孩子们11岁，也就是他们毕业的时候，他们可以流利地运用两种语言。

Kensington Wade also aims to combine two teaching styles. It touts¹² the renowned¹³ “Shanghai model” of maths with the creativity and critical thinking prized in a British education.

肯辛顿韦德小学还计划结合两种教学方式。该校十分推崇著名的“上海数学教学法”，并将结合英国教育所看重的创造力和批判性思维的培养。

The benefits of bilingual education are alluring¹⁴, including greater cultural empathy and cognitive¹⁵ flexibility¹⁶. Then there is the question of whether children view the language as being useful — the bane of Greek and Latin teachers.

双语教育的好处包括更好的文化认同和认知灵活性，这是非常吸引人的。而这里的问题就是孩子们是否会觉得这种语言有用，而且这也是希腊语和拉丁语老师们的烦恼之源。

In April, Jo Wallace, Kensington Wade’s headteacher, visited three schools in the San Francisco area that have been offering immersive English-Mandarin instruction, one for more than 30 years.

四月份肯辛顿韦德小学的校长乔·华莱士访问了旧金山地区的三所学校。这三所学校都提供沉浸式中英文课程，其中一所学校已教授了30多年的中英文课程。

“I went with the worry that these little kids were going to be confused, that they’d be stressed. And all I saw was children having a lovely time,” she recalled, although she acknowledged that some parents would have to “hold their nerve” in the early days.

“我怀着担忧去了那里，我担心这些小孩子们会困惑，会有压力。可我在那儿看到的是孩子们过得很愉快，”她回忆道，虽然她明白初期一些父母还是得“保持冷静”。