KENOSHA, Wis. — Yunghung Sandra Hsiao spent the first period of one of her recent Mandarin Chinese classes to teach students how to cook a sweet and sour chicken dish. 

It was part of the class’s Lunar New Year celebration.

“Because of COVID, we stopped for three years. This is the first year [we] resumed,” Hsiao said. 

She provided the chicken, the egg, and the panko bread crumbs. Students worked with chopsticks to get the chicken breaded and ready to be fried by Hsiao. 

Azalea Salcedo, a senior, was one of those students. She’s been studying Chinese for four years. 

“Originally, I wanted to take Spanish, but I was forced to take Chinese by my mom,” Salcedo laughed. “After a while I was like, ‘man, this is so much better than taking Spanish,’ because you learn from the beginning, so you get a better grasp on the language instead of picking up where you left off.”

She understands three languages now because she started taking Mandarin during her freshman year. She also knows English and Spanish. 

“My speaking needs a little bit of work, and writing, but when it comes down to reading, I understand a lot of it, which is really surprising,” Salcedo said. 

Hsiao — who often goes by her middle name, Sandra — said over the last 20 years of teaching, it’s been incredible to see how much the students have grown in the language. 

She said students are sometimes nervous because the Chinese language doesn’t have an alphabet. 

“Kids always think it’s too hard due to the characters, and I told them I control characters, and I will make sure I will not give you a lot of them,” Hsiao said. “I want you to learn the characters and apply the information you have learned.”

That’s why she focuses a lot on hands-on instruction, such as cooking a traditional food and teaching about culture. 

Helen Rose is a chemistry teacher who Hsiao calls her mentor. Rose invites the Mandarin class into her chemistry classroom for the Lunar New Year celebration every year. 

She said these students have an opportunity for success that many other students don’t get the chance to take. 

“They are expanding well beyond their bubble, but they’re also learning to communicate worldwide,” Rose said. 

Salcedo said she knows how many doors these classes can open after graduation. 

“It would get you so much further in the working businesses when you learn, that goes for any language though, but since we have a lot of stuff going on with China, it would be very convenient to have the language,” Salcedo said.