Mandarin Chinese Language School Principal Bryan Bordelon and Assistant Principal Christina Oliva had quite a surprise upon returning from a recent trip to China — a donation of 2,500 books from the Chinese Consulate.

The pair and a team of administrators were in Beijing and Tianjin as part of the College Board China Bridge Delegation, an effort to exchange ideas on U.S.-based programs, meet with Chinese educators, and tour Chinese schools.

The donation from the Consulate consists of curriculum-based books — all in Mandarin Chinese. Bordelon said the books will help in the school’s effort to develop fluent speakers of the language.

“This helps supplement our language instruction in class because it gives those kids the chance to reinforce their reading and writing skills, and what we’re needing now is a way to take that and extend it beyond the classroom and traditional curriculum,” Bordelon said.

Baiyu Xu, Consul of Education at the Chinese Consulate, said the Consulate ordered the books from a Confucius Institute in China for delivery to the school.

“The Consulate wants to help HISD in its endeavors to promote Chinese teachings. We hope that we can be of some assistance to HISD,” Xu said. “We want to help the children of HISD learn Chinese as early as possible. The Chinese community in Houston is developing … and the Chinese culture is growing.”

The next goal of the program at the Mandarin Chinese Immersion School is to produce fluent readers and writers.

“We’re working to develop our classroom library collection and also our school library,” Bordelon said. “Our PTO is working very hard to get donations of storybooks for classroom libraries. So we are actively seeking out any sort of Mandarin language books to get our students reading.”