Title:
Some US Students Learn Mandarin With China's Help
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
Some schools in the United States and other
countries offer Chinese language classes with
government support from China. Saint Mary's School
is a private college preparatory school in Medford,
Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest. Carly Irvine is in
her fourth year of learning Mandarin. She says:
"Since China and America are working so closely and
our relationship is growing more and more, I think
it will be very important in the future to know
Chinese."
Saint Marys also teaches Spanish, German and Latin.
It added Mandarin in two thousand five. Two years
ago, it became the first school in the country to
join the Confucius Classroom program.
The program pays about half the costs of a teacher
sent to a school in the United States. China's
Education Ministry also provides books and other
materials.
Saint Mary's principal, Frank Phillips, says knowing
Chinese will help students in a world where China is
quickly gaining economic power. But he admits to
concerns in his local community. He says: "The
question I always get is, 'Is this a gigantic
propaganda move, is this an evil Communist plot on
the part of China?' From what I can detect, having
been involved in it for two years, I see none of
that."In fact, the program has won the support of
his local representative in the state legislature.
Dennis Richardson says he has concerns about human
rights in China. But he is among several lawmakers
who have been pushing for more Chinese language
education in public schools in Oregon.
Zheng Ling, a teacher at Saint Mary's, came from
China in two thousand eight. She says: "People do
not know much about China, especially the latest
development. So I think this is a chance for them to
know more about China, what China is really like.
Its quite different from what it was twenty years
ago." The Confucius Classroom program is in about
forty countries, including more than fifty American
schools and universities.
A recent report said more schools in the United
States are teaching Chinese and Arabic, although the
numbers are still low. But it said foreign language
teaching in public elementary and middle schools
dropped sharply in recent years. Some schools say a
federal law that only measures progress in math and
reading has hurt language teaching.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
