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Both my grandparents were University professors in the 50s, early '60s, and after the Cultural Revolution ended late 70s. My grandma teaches Chemistry and my grandpa teaches Chinese literature. Growing up in a family of educators allowed me more access to Educational literacies and helped me understand the identity as a future educator.

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My mom graduated from College and was assigned to a government-owned enterprise in Mianyang City. Mianyang is the second largest prefecture-level city of Sichuan province in Southwest China, located in north-central Sichuan, covering an area of 20,281 square kilometers consisting of Jiangyou, a county-level city, five counties, and three urban districts.
At the time, college graduates were assigned to Chinese government-owned companies, and they would not need to find jobs independently. A college graduate student in China in the '80s was considered National training talent. Because of the cultural revolution from 1966-1976, China had an endangered educated population, which was a major obstacle to its development. Historical and political factors shaped my early identity: the only child from a family that values education.

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My mom married my biological father in Mianyang, and he is a well-known oil painting artist. He had a studio at home, and I often saw him painting at the age of a toddler. The smell of the paint, the texture of the brush strokes, and the massive canvas left some marks in my memory. I can't say for sure there is any connection between this memory to my visual arts literacy, as evidenced later in my life. But perhaps?

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China enacted the one-child policy in the 1980s. I was the only child growing up. Historical and political factors shaped my identity at an early age, the only child from a family that values education. I got 100% attention and financial support from my Grandparents and parents. This made studying at private schools and studying abroad in the U.S. financially accessible.

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My mom sent me to a poorly funded local public school. She divorced when I was four years old and later remarried. I was in elementary school when her career was on the rise. So she had no time to focus on my education and learning from first to third grade. English was not offered in this elementary school, so I missed the English learning opportunity until the 4th grade. This delay had a permanent effect on my English language acquisition. And it made me an English learner rather than a native English speaker.

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I transferred to a well-funded private school in Mianyang called Mianyang Foreign Language School. As the name suggests, this school focused on an English curriculum. Although students still learn every subject in Chinese. More immersive English classes, global cultural exchange programs, and better-skilled English teachers were available. These arranged me into a series of abroad studying literacies and further developed my identity as an international student and English learner.

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CETUSA- Council for Educational Travel U.S.A
I passed the English proficiency test to become a J-1 exchange student in 2009, and I was the only person chosen from Mianyang City. Sichuan Provincial Education Bureau sponsors this exchange program, and only 50 students were chosen from across the province. Unlike F1 students, who are more commonly seen now these days, J1 students do not pay for their studies and living in the U.S. That made this program a very competitive one to join. This is one of the most important steps I have taken in my life so far. I had officially begun my international student identity and my identity as an English learner.

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I graduated from Elkhart Memorial High school as a National Honor Roll student. During the 2 years, I studied at EMHS, I developed my English literacy at rocket speed. I had developed survival English, academic English literacy at the school, and literacies in Western history stories, religious beliefs, and stories. Apart from English literacy, I also learned public school schedules, curricula, testing standards, and a comprehensive but basic knowledge of human affairs within the school. This experience at a U.S. public high school did not just prepare me for College and graduate school later on. More precisely it was the fundamental reason why I dared to switch my career to public education. For any immigrant who has never had a public school education in the U.S., entering the U.S. education industry, especially public education, can be a very intimidating thing to do. It is difficult to understand the rules in a work environment like school without first-hand experience. Even American-borns feel pressure to be high school teachers, let alone a teacher who has not experienced even one day in American high school culture firsthand. I don't want to call it English literacy, it's rather "school literacy" that's important.

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My high school diploma. I was in the National Honor Society group and graduated top 20 students in my class. I know I "survived" high school and my first step here in the U.S. It was a scary but interesting period of my life that was full of challenges. But that's also when I begin to know that there is nothing too difficult in this world, only the person who has the will to do it. U.S. high school education built a foundation for my English literacy.

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I took Spanish in high school completely out of curiosity, and I ended up loving learning foreign languages at school. Spanish was perhaps one of my favorite classes because I got the opportunity to practice with my Spanish friends and we watched Spanish movies during class. It was that 50 minutes class period where everyone is learning a new language and I didn't feel like the only "Language learner" who needed help and extra time with something where everyone else doesn't.  I liked that I'm not the only language learner in this environment. Everyone is learning something new based on the same or similar basis. It makes me feel a lot less stressed.

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I know the stereotype about Asians being good at Math. However, I was terrible at math, and math class used to give me severe anxiety. My math teacher in China created a hostile learning environment, and he would call students "stupid pigs" if they missed the correct answer. When I had to take a day off school to get my visa, he told everyone in the class that I was just a spoiled rich kid, studying abroad only because I had wealthy parents, not because of how great I was. I dreamed about slapping his face for years after that day until I suddenly realized that he does not worth my time.
My horrifying experience with the math teacher significantly affected my identity and literacy! I decided that I hated math and would never be good at it. So at secondary school, I had already decided never to consider a career with anything to do with math. Even after I got a B+ in AP calculus in the U.S., I loved my math teacher at Elkhart Memorial High School.

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I also took at least one type of art class every semester. Being in an art space helped me think creatively, and art is a way of communication without any spoken language. I enjoy the freedom that art gives me to express myself without speaking English, which is not my best form of communication. This non-verbal form of literacy gave me fair recognition by teachers and peers. People do not think less of me because I cannot verbally express my thoughts as well as they do. In fact, I am very good at expressing myself in Chinese, both verbally and in writing. I used to be top of my class.
*I was looking for literacy and discipline texts that I can be fairly recognized, acknowledged, and learned.
* Lushcnyk (2021) mentioned in one of our annotation articles, Discipline texts in a form of authentic social-cultural reading material. Authentic social-cultural reading material focuses more on the content being authentic, I believe the forms of discipline text are equally important. My point is to embrace the various forms of discipline text, not all relying on textual expression to strengthen acquisition of the language, better students’ social adaptation, and motivation to learn.

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Here is one high school drawing piece showing my visual art literacies.
I like to draw animals, and the simplicity of using one pencil and one piece of paper suits me better than oil painting, where you have to mix different mediums and colors.
I like to use simple tools to create art; complicated tools can interrupt the coherence of my thinking process.

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Graduated from Indiana University Bloomington
Double majored in Studio Arts & Media Productions.

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Admitted to USC School of Cinematic Arts.

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This is the very first short film I ever produced. And it made it to Berlin International Film Festival.
https://youtu.be/E-VpD4_sgNw

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The creative team at Berlin International Festival.

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*My identity as a student filmmaker had changed to a filmmaker.
Voodoo Macbeth was a feature film I produced after I graduated from USC. Voodoo Macbeth was a challenge because I was unfamiliar with its history. Nonetheless, this film made it to a good list of film festivals and is now on Prime, Apple TV, Youtube, and other online streaming places. For many of my friends and cohort, this was an Amazing opportunity after graduation. I felt notably intimidated by the unfamiliarity of the story's setting, and the unfamiliarity of many Shakespearean stages plays. It was a complete "fake it until you make it" experience, I started to have a lot of self-doubts and fears of working on stories in similar situations in the future.

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I worked full-time at Vox, Inc, one of LA's best voice-over talent agencies. I worked with many celebrities and not-yet-famous talents. I saw how talented people kept getting bookings and kept themself busy, while the majority remained "inactive" enough that they must work on something else on the side to afford to live in the city of LA. It was hard to keep away the anxiety and stress they brought to me during work. It is far from the job or lifestyle I wanted when I decided to go to film school. There is still too much to write here.
The identity of someone who works in Hollywood makes me feel mismatched and disowned. Because of my identity disagreement, my social and professional investment in this industry is decreasing. I wanted a change.
Mora Vázquez, A., Trejo Guzmán, N. P., & Mora-Pablo, I. , (2018) write about transnationalism has pro-

found implications for the degree of people’s adaptation and investment in the social, academic, and work practices characteristic of their new context.

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Asian hate crime surged during the Covid pandemic. Thousands of hate crimes have taken place in the past couple of years. Videos on Social media made me very anxious; for the first time, I felt my safety was at high risk in this country. What is even scarier is when I heard violence and racism begin to spread at schools worse than ever, I felt hopeless because children are the future. I knew I would be a mom; my children would attend public schools. Do I wait for someone else to make things right so my children can be safe at school? I never wanted to waste my time on Mid age racists who will hate regardless, but perhaps I can do something good for the young generation.

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My husband and I drove across the country in September 2021. We used to live in an 800 sqft one-bedroom apartment in Orange County, California, and now we have a much bigger living space in Atlanta. The freedom of space and affordability of living became significant catalysts of my career-changing decision. California lifestyle provides no room to think over my life, and I had to keep working to pay the bill. If there is one positive thing about Covid, is the time I saved from the commute allowed me to research different careers and requirements for each occupation. I passed a series of exams, including GACE program admission, ACTFL, GACE content exams, and Mercer application, while working from home. My goal is to take control of my life, not to be overwhelmed by it.

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I became a student again, never thinking I can deal with a day more school after my first MFA degree from USC. Now, school/degree for me it's no longer about its popularity, and ranking, I care more about its efficiency, value for money, and distance from home. The meaning and purpose of going to Mercer are now incredibly clear to me, unlike before. I now make intentional and goal-oriented choices with life decisions.

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*The identity of a secondary school teacher had begun to grow.
-An actual job teaching Chinese at a middle school.
-Recognition of my work by students, parents and the school.
This is my very first job as a Chinese teacher. I taught at Atlanta International School for a temporary full-time job. It was one of the best experiences of my life, despite the challenges of a new teacher, parents' expectations, etc. I can proudly say my students love me, and I miss them all dearly! There is no racism in these 8th graders, and the school is diverse. More than half of the students are from elsewhere besides the U.S.

It was the moment when a student's parent came to me, with tears, on my last day and told me how much her daughter used not to like Chinese class, and it is now her favorite, and she said in not perfect English, "Miss Xiao, you changed Chinese department at school." I had never felt anything like this before, not even standing on the red carpet at the Berlin International Film Festival. My true value lies in using my cross-cultural, cross-linguistic personal experience and understanding to help students see the world with an open eye and understand perspectives different from their own.
Regan and Osborn (2020) write about only about 20% of all K-12 students in the U.S. actually study a world language. and the increasing concerns with assessment and international comparisons of U.S. students and their counterparts in other countries. I hope that in the future, not only will the national standard demand more of the world language discipline, but students will also become spontaneously interested in the discipline of world languages.

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IB MYP curriculum(2022). Each unit topic is focused on making practical connections with the real world. I taught students in 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th grade, we learned most of unit 1 and 2 topics in the chart.
Unlike the more abstract, theoretical teaching concepts learned in mercer, or any lecture-based course in general. Now I have access to a more specific and practical disciplinary literacy-IB MYP Chinese Curriculum.

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Thirteen years after I came to live in the United States, my green card finally arrived(the same day I found out to be pregnant). I was always in legal status for thirteen years and have not missed a single tax payment. This hard-earned ID card would reasonably make me happy, but now I look at the word PERMANENT with some concern. Is this country full of violence, shootings, and racism really the place I want to live as a permanent resident? Although the green card has in fact changed my identity, it has also stimulated a lot of thinking. Do I want to go to a better place or make it a better place?

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Mora Vázquez, A., Trejo Guzmán, N. P., & Mora-Pablo, I. (2018). ‘I was lucky to be a bilingual kid, and that makes me who I am:’ the role of transnationalism in identity issues. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 24(5), 693–707.

International Baccalaureate, Middle Years Programme (MYP) , Chinese Language acquisition.
https://www.ibo.org/programmes/middle-years-programme/curriculum/language-acquisition/

Lushchyk,  Y.,  Pikulytska,  L.,  &  Tsyhanok,  H.

(2021). Authentic Social-Cultural Reading in Foreign

Language  Learning  and  Teaching.  Revista  Romaneasca  pentru Educatie Multidimensionala, 13(4), 524-542.

https://doi.org/10.18662/rrem/13.4/496

Reagan, T. G., & Osborn, T. A. (2020). In World Language Education as critical pedagogy: The promise of Social Justice. essay, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

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The study of additional languages in the Middle Years Programme (MYP) provides students with the opportunity to develop insights into the features, processes and craft of language and the concept of culture, and to realize that there are diverse ways of living, viewing and behaving in the world.

MYP language acquisition is a compulsory component of the MYP in every year of the programme. Schools must provide sustained language learning in at least two languages for each year of the MYP.

Language and identity

Learning to communicate in a variety of ways is fundamental to students' identity affirmation.

What is the significance of language acquisition in the MYP?

The ability to communicate in a variety of modes, in more than one language, is essential to the concept of an international education. The language acquisition course provides a linguistic and academic challenge for students in order to facilitate the best possible educational experience.

Students are given the opportunity to develop their language skills to their full potential, as well as the possibility of progressing through various phases over the course of the MYP.

How is language acquisition structured in the MYP?

In this subject group, teaching and learning is organized into six phases. The phases do not correspond to particular age groups or MYP year levels. Students do not necessarily begin in phase one - they can begin at any phase, depending on their prior experiences, and may exit from any phase on the continuum.

MYP eAssessment offers IB-validated grades for a range of language acquisition courses through international moderation of student work in ePortfolios that document reading, writing, viewing and speaking skills. Course results are available in three levels of fluency: emergent, capable and proficient.

When planning the language acquisition curriculum, teachers will need to decide the most suitable phase in which to place individual students or a group of students, as informed by the achievable exit point for the students and the language learning pathways available to the students.

Find out how to become authorized to implement the MYP.

Learn more about language acquisition in an MYP workshop for teachers.

MYP subject briefs

Our subject briefs for the MYP look at every one of the programme's subjects. They cover core requirements, aims and assessment.

Visit the digital toolkit on the link below, and look for the heading 'MYP materials'.

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The study of additional languages in the Middle Years Programme (MYP) provides students with the opportunity to develop insights into the features, processes and craft of language and the concept of culture, and to realize that there are diverse ways of living, viewing and behaving in the world.