Zhang Ying, of Bryant University’s Confucius Institute, top, teaches children during a Chinese language and culture program at the William Winsor School in Greenville. Alexa Keevers, 10, a fourth grader at the School, tries to guess her Chinese character, which she was wearing on her head, with the help of Zhang Ying.

The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer

SMITHFIELD — For the past several weeks there has been a touch of China at the William Winsor Elementary School and the Gallagher Middle School, part of a pilot program in cooperation with Bryant University’s Confucius Institute aimed at exposing students to the rising power in Asia.

Schools Supt. Robert M. O’Brien said yesterday that visiting professors from Bryant had used the program to develop a curriculum that will be sent back to China for approval and will be used when other Smithfield schools are brought into the project. He said he expects the program will develop beyond Smithfield.

Third and fourth graders at Winsor wrapped up their part of the project on Wednesday with a demonstration of their acquired language and cultural skills before a gathering of parents and school officials.

Under the direction of visiting scholar Ying Zhang, the students answered their roll call in Mandarin, the most common language in China.

Zhang then led them through an exercise in which they said welcome to the visitors, and then “I love you” in Mandarin.

Although the language nuances were lost to most of the adults in the room, there were some apparently universal words that seemed quite recognizable — “Mamma” and “Pappa.”

“ ‘Momma I wok’ means ‘mom loves me,’ ” Zhang said.

The students then had to give their ages in Chinese, and competed in teams to see who could place the proper Chinese names alongside the months of the year in English. As the teams labored, the other students cheered them on — in Chinese.

Bridget Morisseau, the principal, added the right touch at the end — fortune cookies.

O’Brien said the children underwent instruction an hour a week for eight weeks in a program coordinated by Prof. Hong Yang, of the Confucius Institute.

“We talked about possibly continuing it every semester, but we haven’t decided,” he said. “We have a large number of kids, and they can only service 25 at a time.”

O’Brien said two other schools, probably the LaPerche and Anna McCabe Elementary Schools, will begin the program Jan. 22. After that, the Old County Road School will take it up.

The superintendent said that the program consultants want to use the sophisticated electronic communications setup in the high school’s media center to try a videoconference with China.

“It was really wonderful working with Bryant University and the instructors,” he said. “They sat in on some of our classes before they started, to see the American methods of teaching. They were very surprised at the choices our kids have. It is a little more scripted in China, where they are told what they have to take.”

tmorgan@projo.com