Yew Chung International School – Silicon Valley

Yew Chung International School of Silicon Valley is a private, non-profit, co-ed, Preschool - Grade 5 Chinese Immersion day school located at 310 Easy Street, Mountain View, California. It is part of the Yew Chung Education Foundation, which was established in 1823. YCIS also has schools in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing and Qingdao.

Yew Chung International School of Silicon Valley offers a Chinese-English bilingual immersion program. While English is the primary language of instruction, YCIS focuses on bilingual learning through the utilization of the "co-teaching" model (classes are administered by both Western and Chinese teachers, in order to encourage fluency.)

Curriculum

The curriculum at Yew Chung International School – Silicon Valley meets and exceeds standards set forth by the California Department of Education.

Yew Chung International School of Silicon Valley offers education to students from Preschool (at age 2) through Grade 5.

Leadership

Dr. Betty Chan Po-kieng^[1] is Director of Yew Chung schools, including Secondary, Primary and Early Childhood Education (ECE) Sections.

Graduated from University of Hawaii with B.Ed. and M.Ed, Dr. Chan specialised in early childhood education. She was awarded AAUW Scholarship and started the doctoral program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under the mentorship of Prof. Bernard Spodek. While completing the required coursework, she had to return to Hong Kong to take up her responsibilities at Yew Chung. Returning to the USA to pursue her doctorate, she entered the program at Union Institute (renamed The Union Institute and University in 2001) under the supervision of co-founder of the institute, Prof. Roy P. Fairfield (Harvard), whose philosophy of “a university without walls” became a widely accepted model. She was awarded her Ph.D. in 1985.

Since assuming leadership of the Yew Chung Education Foundation, founded by her mother Madam Tsang Chor-hang, Dr. Chan has developed Yew Chung schools in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, Qingdao and Silicon Valley, USA.

In 2010, Dr. Chan was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters ^[2] from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, in recognition of her pioneering work in ECE and her consistent advocacy for excellence in all levels of education.

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