订阅
报纸
纸质报纸 电子报纸
手机订阅 微商城
英语
学习
双语学习 热点翻译 英语视频
实用英语 报纸听力 TEENS对话
教育
资讯
最新动态 活动预告
备课资源 语言文化
演讲
比赛
精彩演讲
活动动态
用报
专区
高中   初中
小学   画刊
   电子版首页   |   高一   |   高二   |   高三   |   初一   |   初二   |   初三   |   小学   |   画刊   |   教育报   |   二十一世纪英文报

More US students learn Chinese in preparation for the future

本文作者: 21ST
  据英国《卫报》和美联社等媒体报道,如今美国人的“汉语学习热”持续高涨,上千所学校欲提供汉语课程,但却普遍面临汉语教师匮乏的问题。为此,中国政府近日启动一项新计划,宣布将选派150名中国教师赴美讲学,对美国教师进行汉语培训。

  THE US is being overwhelmed by a rush to learn Mandarin, the official form of the language used in mainland China, the Guardian Weekly reports.

  There are two forces driving Mandarin's momentum: parental ambition for children facing a future in which China is almost certain to be a major player and a government worried that America may get left behind in the new world order.

  "Interest in learning Chinese among American youth and their parents has grown dramatically in the past five years," said Vivien Stewart, vice president of the Asia Society, a US group trying to bridge the gap between Americans and the peoples of Asia and the Pacific.

  In a survey by the US College Board's World Language Initiative, high schools across the country were asked whether they would consider adding Advanced Placement courses in Italian, Russian, Japanese and Chinese. The organization was amazed at the results, said Tom Matts, the initiative's director.

  Fifty schools said they would offer the Russian option, about 175 said Japanese, and 240 said Italian. "And for Chinese, it was 2,400, 10 times the number of any of the other three," Matts said.

  According to the Guardian Weekly, there are thought to be about 50,000 American school children studying Mandarin at US public schools and another 50,000 outside the public system, in private and specialist schools.

  The bottleneck is the supply of Mandarin teachers. It requires enormous tenacity for Westerners to learn a language like Mandarin, with its thousands of written characters and its tonal nuances. According to the Asia Society, all of America's teacher-training institutions turn out only a couple of dozen home-grown Mandarin instructors every year.

  "Our teacher education system is not geared up for producing these teachers," said Michael Levine, the Asia Society's executive director of education.

  One way to ease the shortage is to find native Mandarin speakers. Last month China's Education Minister Zhou Ji announced a plan to help train hundreds of US educators in the Chinese language, AP reports.

  The initiative will bring more than 150 guest teachers from China to US high schools and immerse nearly 600 American teachers of the language in Chinese culture through summer institutes. It will also provide financial aid to nearly 300 American teachers seeking state certification in Chinese.

  The Chinese language "is an important tool for the rest of the world to learn about China and to communicate with the Chinese people," Zhou said at the New York headquarters of the US College Board.
Loading ...
订阅更精彩
相关文章


 主办
联系我们   |    诚聘英才   |   演讲比赛   |   关于我们   |   手机访问
中报二十一世纪(北京)传媒科技有限公司版权所有,未经书面授权,禁止转载或建立镜像。
主办单位:中国日报社 Copyright by 21st Century English Education Media All Rights Reserved 版权所有 复制必究
网站信息网络传播视听节目许可证0108263   京ICP备2024066071号-1   京公网安备 11010502033664号
关闭
内容