Next time you find yourself walking the corridors of B-R High School, don't be surprised to overhear students speaking Mandarin Chinese.

"Any time you can offer students courses that not only enrich their educational experience, but excite them at the same time, you win," said Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School Principal Angela Watson.

Mandarin language courses are brand new this year. Other "atypical" offerings available this year, some for the first time: astronomy and meteorology, pre-engineering, Photoshop and webpage design, beginning guitar, film and music and catastrophes in modern history.

Sarah Almeida, a 17-year-old senior from Raynham, said she jumped at the chance to learn Chinese alphabet.

"I took it as an elective. I already take Spanish, but I wanted to learn about a different culture," Almeida said.

Shawn Lynch, a senior from Bridgewater, has also been studying Spanish for many years but added Mandarin Chinese to his course load. It's fascinating to learn a language that's so different from English, he said.

"It's a changeup, and I like it even more than I thought I would," he said.

Their teacher Linda Zhang was born in China and came to the United States to get a master's in international development from Brandeis University. She was working in the corporate world but was drawn to teaching, she said.

Zhang was supposed to teach just two sections at B-R, but the demand was so high, a third class was added, Watson said. Still, the classes had to be capped and limited to seniors and a few juniors, but Watson hopes to expand the offering to all four years, she said.

"We need to continue to offer students courses that will prepare them for the world they are going to enter. Mandarin Chinese is one of the fastest growing global languages and for any student who wants to enter the business world, it is an essential language to know," Watson said.

Senior Chris Edgington said he may well find himself putting his newly acquired Mandarin to practical use. He's considering a career in geo-physics or geo-physical engineering and "the big market" for that kind of work is China.

Watson said all of the classes are electives, in that none of them are required for graduation. But students get credit for them toward the minimum credits needed to graduate.

The classes have been well-received and are popular options, she said.

"They think it's fun, but I know we're preparing them for the global world," Watson said.

"Our goal is to give them the most enriched curriculum possible. We have core classes in English and math and other areas, but I also want to give them something to sink their teeth into that they find exciting," Watson said.

"I want them to go home and be so excited that they're talking about school at the dinner table," Watson said.