More than 30 million people around the world are studying
Chinese, Director Yan Meihua of the National Office for Teaching
Chinese as a Foreign Language told China Daily.
The Ministry of Education predicts that the number of foreigners
studying Chinese will reach 100 million in the next five years.
Some 2,300 universities in 85 countries have opened Chinese
language courses.
Yan attributes the global fever to learn Chinese to the
country's rapid economic growth and especially its accession to the
World Trade Organization in 2001.
The current number of Chinese teachers can no longer meet
demand. Southeast Asia, the United States, Europe, Africa and Latin
America are all in need of teachers, says Yan.
Her office plans to begin in the first half of this year
recruiting teachers who are willing to work in foreign
countries.
Those who are recruited will be sent abroad after a short
training period.
At the same time, her office will try to encourage foreigners
who know Chinese to teach in their home countries. Yan's office
will issue proficiency certificates to those who are qualified.
China has more than 6,000 teachers who teach foreigners Chinese.
Some of them work inside the country and others are sent abroad,
says Yan.
Mwendanga Musengo, a student from the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, considers China his second home. He has studied in China for
six years.
"I came to China because I love Chinese culture, especially the
traditional Chinese music," says Musengo, a former student at the
Central Conservatory of Music who is now seeking a master's degree
in journalism at the Central University of Nationalities in
Beijing.
Knowing only one Chinese phrase, "Ni hao," Musengo arrived in
Beijing in late 1997 with two other African students. After two
years of language study at Beijing Language and Cultural
University, he can speak and understand putonghua (standard spoken
Chinese), or Mandarin as it is known in Western countries.
Musengo complained that when he began learning Chinese, very few
Chinese teachers spoke English or other languages, which made
communication between teachers and students difficult.
However, the vocabulary textbooks are good enough as they
include Chinese characters, pinyin or phonetic symbols, English and
graphics, he says.
At present, 36 Chinese universities have opened bilingual
courses (Chinese and English or another foreign language) to train
Chinese teachers.
Each year, the country invites foreign teachers who teach
Chinese in their countries to China to upgrade their teaching
skills. Meanwhile, Chinese experts are sent to foreign countries to
help train foreign Chinese teachers, says Yan.
She says learning Chinese is regarded as important in both
developed and developing countries. In the United States, for
example, Chinese courses have been introduced in a number of
colleges and high schools.
China and the United States have started to develop jointly
Advanced Placement (AP) courses to further promote Chinese language
studies in the United States, said the Ministry of Education.
AP courses will start in the United States in 2006 and
corresponding examinations will begin in 2007.
The idea of offering such courses was initiated by the US
College Board in 1995 to open college-level Chinese-language
studies and hold examinations among high schools in the United
States.
Senior high school students who pass the examinations can obtain
college credits for Chinese language in advance, and the credits
will be useful for students who want to enter prestigious
universities, according to the ministry's Department for
International Cooperation and Exchange.
The AP courses are expected to stimulate enthusiasm to learn
Chinese among US high school students. It will also help promote
teaching Chinese as a foreign language, sources from the department
say.
According to Zhang Guoqing, an official from the National Office
for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, China and the United
States have also started to develop computerized Chinese learning
programs, targeting American students aged 12 to 15. This is the
largest cooperative educational project between the two countries,
he says
(China Daily March 19, 2004)