BYFIELD - Jade Qian pantomimes as she depicts the Chinese word for "me."

"Start with an eyebrow, then arms out, this leg with toe pointed up, and a sword," she says, as the character takes shape on the classroom board. "Another leg and another sword and finish with another eyebrow."

Thirteen teens intently follow Qian's swift strokes. She pronounces the word - it sounds like "woe," but with a special falling-then-rising inflection - and they repeat it.

The teens, mostly freshmen, are members of the first Mandarin Chinese class at The Governor's Academy. The class started last month and meets four days a week.

The class was formed to meet a growing interest in languages beyond Europe, and the interest is not just at the high school level. Adult classes offered around Newburyport are also finding students.

At The Governor's Academy, the course is part of an effort to give students a larger world perspective, Headmaster Marty Doggett said.

"I think this is part of a larger global education that we're trying to move toward as a school," Doggett said. He said the school is trying to arrange more exchange programs abroad, including in China.

Doggett said he asked the academy's languages faculty to do a comprehensive study to determine what additions to the curriculum made the most sense. The school has traditionally offered French, German, Latin and Spanish.

"We felt we needed to go beyond the traditional European languages. We looked at Chinese, and we looked at Arabic," Doggett said. "The consensus was that Chinese was the way to go."

Because students must take three years of a language to meet the academy's graduation requirement, Mandarin Chinese is open only to freshmen and sophomores this year. Doggett said the school plans to add more advanced levels of instruction each year.

Katherine Guy, chairwoman of the academy's Foreign Languages Department, said the Mandarin course "is a seed that's been germinating for a while."

Guy said the parents of some of the school's Korean students suggested the introduction of Chinese into the curriculum, since it is a language spoken widely throughout Asia.

"It made sense in light of globalization and the growing economy of China," she said. "If we're committed to a global education, and we are, we needed to make that commitment in a language."

When the Chinese course was offered, it was limited to 14 students, as are all foreign language classes at the academy.

"Exactly 14 students signed up. It fit perfectly," Guy said.

While The Governor's Academy is the only secondary school in the area with a course in Chinese, the Newburyport Adult and Community Education program is offering Basic Chinese I for the third year this fall, director Vicki Hendrickson said.

Taught by certified Chinese teacher Jeannie Liao, the class consists of seven two-hour sessions, held once a week. Hendrickson said eight students are currently enrolled.

Hendrickson the adult ed classes are not like taking a language course in high school.

"Our language courses go at a slower pace than a high school course, because there's no homework," she said. "People are too busy to be able to do homework. Our courses aren't so labor intensive."

Qian (pronounced "Chen") has for several years offered Mandarin lessons privately in a studio in The Tannery in Newburyport called Jade's Classroom.

She said her classes started by teaching Chinese children whose adoptive American parents wanted them to keep a connection with their heritage. Classes have expanded in the last year or two with more non-Chinese children, she said.

In response to growing interest, Qian has started to offer adult classes in Jade's Classroom, as well. She said she limits enrollment to six students in a class and currently has two classes in session.

Qian also works with businesses that are interested in getting into the Chinese market.

Things move fast in Qian's classroom at The Governor's Academy. Qian quizzes the 13 students (one is out sick on this day) by pronouncing words and having them draw the characters. Then she has them translate sentences she writes on the board.

The students are keenly aware of the relevance of the Chinese language in today's world.

Dylan Binnie said China's growing presence in the world economy means that fluency in the language will be increasingly important.

Konnar Johnson said her father travels in Asia on business and regrets not being able to speak the language.

The students also said that learning a non-Western language is a challenge.

"The hardest part is not having a familiar alphabet," Jesse Skaff said.

Tim Winslow disagrees.

"The hardest part is the tones," he said. "If you get the tone wrong, you're saying a completely different word."

Qian later demonstrates how the same sound, "ma," spoken with different tones can mean "mother," "scold" and "horse."

The complex-looking Chinese characters make the language appear more difficult than it is, Qian said. The grammar, for example, is much simpler than most Western languages, she said.

"I want to make it fun, and I want it to be relevant," Qian said after class. "I want them to be able to express themselves. Language is about all the senses. I want them to be lively in the classroom."