Concluding Thoughts

Jeff Wang, Assistant Director of Chinese Language Initiatives at Asia Society, Chris Livaccari, Associate Director for Education and Chinese Language Initiatives at Asia Society, Anthony Jackson, Vice President for Education at Asia Society, Lori Langer de Ramirez, World Languages Chair at Herricks school district and myself.

It has been an amazing five days here in Shanghai. Though it seems like we accomplished so much the work has really just begun. We hope to establish closer ties with our partner school so that our students and teachers can eventually visit to do study and teaching exchanges.  Meanwhile I will continue to get my students to work hard on their Chinese language skills. I hope someday they too will be able to experience first hand the smells, tastes, sights and sounds of this country. When they do eventually visit China I expect them to be able to use beautiful Mandarin to communicate with all the wonderful people they will meet. I hope they will be excited and amazed by all they experience just as I was. Most of all I want them to say they were so glad they decided to study Chinese.