My guardian’s 17-year-old daughter, who is a Chinese-Polish girl, just came back from China after Christmas break. Actually she spent the last whole summer in Xiamen, the city where I lived, and her Chinese improved from nothing to an expert level. I was quite impressed. While Chinese students learn English as if they are crazy, now Chinese become an attractive language for American to learn. Such an interesting circle!
Today, the article I read on The New York Times somehow proves my thoughts; I was astonished once I saw the title, “Foreign Languages Fade in Class — Except Chinese”. Is it true?! That’s so sad for me who adore learning languages. I then read the article thoroughly. According to a government-financed-survey, many public schools stopped giving foreign language lessons in the past 10 years; however, the number of schools that teach Chinese increased from about 300 to 1600. The reason for this is that, Chinese government is sending Chinese teachers from China and they are partly paid by the former. Under the strict financial condition, most of schools are more likely to accept this kind offer rather than paying for a French teacher. The article also provides another indicator, the number of students taking AP Chinese, which also has grown so rapidly that it was likely to surpass that of German. Meanwhile, study shows that other foreign languages that have grown, later has declined. Then, the article demonstrates the working condition of volunteer Chinese “guest teachers”. Comparing to its start point, which is 2006, their salaries increased significantly and experienced teachers are given much more benefits.
There is an American called “Red Foreigner” who is quite popular among Chinese. He speaks perfect Chinese. Let’s take a look at this short video, just for fun and also get an impression of American Chinese speakers.
It seems like the author likes this fact and believes that fluent Chinese will be helpful in the future American generation. I agree with this. The policy is very clever and it aids both sides: it offers more vocations for those Chinese; it lightens the financial burden of public schools; it provides American students the opportunity to learn Chinese so that in the future they can go to the developing China for living without language concerns.
lwang11 Said:
on January 23, 2010 at 4:21 am
Amazing Chinese!!! even they still have a little accent.
Today in F block with Ms. Tift, our class talked about the language and its effects. BK brought up nowaday, there are mad people learning Chinese in America and Canada, ’cause China kept sending free teacher(volunteers) to these two countries. Jay Lee talked about the trending of learning language is the trending of authority. Eric pointed out that he thought the power was moving from America to China now, since the financial tsunami.
I cannot imagine someday people around the world are all speaking Chinese… It seems weird for me.
jenniferzhuang Said:
on March 3, 2010 at 5:11 am
The article shocked me a lot! China is getting stronger, and the world is getting closer to China. The China has the most population in the world, so I think it is possible that the Chinese language is getting famous in the world. I heard that there are lots of foreigners in my city, Shenzhen. They are staying in China and teach English in the school. It seems like they are teaching English in China, but actually they are learning Chinese as well. The language Chinese is getting attractive!
sabrinapan Said:
on March 7, 2010 at 2:20 pm
The most interesting thing is that when I have increasing interests in learning Korean, all my Korean friends are learning Chinese now. As a Chinese student who is studying abroad, I am proud that my mother tongue is more and more popular. It’s true that the most popular language in the world is still English, but Chinese is undoubtedly becoming the most popular language in the world gradually due to the great population of China. It is surprising that I could find Chinese whenever I go. I think the popularity of Chinese is part because of the Chinese immigrants.