The Chinese Language in Education: National Coordination of Efforts
The 21st century has been the staging area for China’s awe-inspiring economic growth and it’s manifestation as a political leader; these facts have been a major factor in why public and private sector leaders acquired an increase interest in the country’s tongue and culture. It is crucial for the United States to have an increasing number of students who are proficient in the Chinese language because it will help America to maintain its leverage as it pertains to international dealings. In order to get Chinese taught in schools on an efficient and effective level, then several problems issues have to be tackled.
The coordination of creating Chinese language programs has been sporadic, but in order to have language programs available for learners at all education levels, regardless of location, there has to be a national organized effort. There has to be an infrastructure that takes into account the students, teachers, curriculum, materials, assessment, and the training, funding, and support needed for individual language proficiency and societal language education capacity (asiasociety.org) on a national level. Without this infrastructure the United States can not expect Chinese language learners to have any incentive or take the opportunity to be become literate and proficient user of Chinese. In order to do this we have to make sure the Chinese learning process is as seamless as possible regardless of where the student began learning the language. I can not stress enough the importance of an infrastructure; according to the Foreign Service Institute of the State Department the Chinese language is categorized as a category three language as oppose to Spanish which is a category one language. This means that whatever level of proficiency you would achieve in Spanish with 575-600 hours of instruction it would take you 2,200 hours of instruction to reach that same level of proficiency in Chinese.
The process of creating a stable Chinese language learning experience across the United States is happening right now. Organizations like the Asia Society and the College Board are among the few who are trying to expedite this process, so the growing demand for a Chinese language curribculum can be met by a credible well thought out curriculum. The product of such a curriculum will be a individuals who will be able to assist the United States in meeting the demands of an increasingly globalizing world.
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