About 20 middle school students also study Level One Mandarin Chinese with Li Wei, a guest teacher the district will host for the school year thanks to a grant program through the College Board and the Ohio Department of Education.

"She'll touch a lot more students than that in the middle school," Stewart said, spending the rest of the school day teaching about Chinese culture. "Every student in Dublin will have the opportunity to have some contact with her.

"Teaching a foreign language is a lot more than teaching how to read and write and speak a language," Stewart said.

"As they learn Chinese, they'll also learn a lot more about the world as well."

Li came to Dublin from Wuhan in the Hubei Province and will live with two host families during her time here.

Parents and community members have been requesting Chinese language classes for several years, but this is the first time the district has been able to fund the launch of the program, Stewart said.

He said he hopes the district will receive the grant from ODE and the College Board again next year.

Further incentive to start the program came from The World is Flat; A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Friedman's 2005 examination of global competition and its level, or "flat," playing field.

"We need to prepare our kids for the 21st century," Stewart said. While Chinese isn't the only language that would benefit students, it is one that the United States Department of Education has designated as critical, Stewart said.

"We want to be able to offer that to students who are interested ... to be able to prepare them for what's coming down the road."

"Our long-range plan is to create a Chinese program that is articulated from elementary to high school," Superintendent David Axner said in March. "Chinese is the world's most spoken language, and in a global economy, learning Chinese can only benefit our students."

Even as the program begins, it's still being developed, Stewart said. The teachers are the only experts the district has, so they will be instrumental in determining the programs course as the year progresses.

The Ohio State University K-12 Chinese Language Flagship Program worked with the district on teacher training and developing teaching materials. Those materials focus on speaking and listening first.

"The idea is to get kids to be able to communicate on a basic level in Chinese before we get into the Chinese characters," Stewart said.

"The first year is key in terms of getting the program off the ground, in terms of spreading the word" so other students will want to enroll, he said. Li's lessons in Chinese culture should help promote the program, he said.

Although the high school program was open to students in all grade levels, most of those enrolled in the classes are in ninth grade, Stewart said.

The district plans to add a level each year, so those students may continue to learn Chinese, at least to Level Four. If the program proves popular, the district could offer Level Five or AP Chinese.