Legendary investor Jim Rogers wants his daughters to learn Mandarin Chinese
Excerpt:
The 65-year-old investment guru, professor, traveler and author moved to Singapore from New York last year to allow his two daughters to learn Putonghua. He believes China will be the most powerful country in the world sometime this century.
This is why my two daughters, 5 years old and 5 months old, learn Chinese. For those of my daughters' generation, Chinese and English will be the two most important languages in the world. When they grow up, they will find China to be the most powerful country.
Mr. Rogers started on his road to riches early, earning money when he was five years old picking up bottles at baseball games and selling them. After obtaining a degree from Yale University in 1964 and a master's degree from Oxford University two years later, he worked on Wall Street. In 1970, he and George Soros co-founded the Quantum Fund. It increased in value 40 times within 10 years, allowing Mr. Rogers to retire at the age of 37.
South China Morning Post - September 8, 2008
Author: Enoch Yiu
West Virginia Counties offers Chinese classes to K-12 students
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13 Chinese teachers across nine West Virginia counties will be teaching Chinese to elementary, middle, and high school students.
Amelia Courts, executive director for the Office of English as a Second Language and International Schools in the state Department of Education, said Chinese and other foreign language classes are a key element of the state's 21st Century Skills push.
Charleston Gazette (WV) - September 7, 2008
Author: Davin White Staff writer
Florida Preschool Offers Chinese
Excerpt:
Living Waters Preschool will be offering Chinese to their students as part of their weekly activities. Preschoolers learn Spanish on Tuesdays and Chinese on Thursdays.
"We're just launching it," said the Rev. Dell Shiell, pastor of Living Waters Lutheran Church, located just on the Charlotte County side of Chancellor Boulevard. "Basically, we believe it's very important for the kids to have a global focus. ... We believe that Spanish is important, living in this country and living in this state, but there are so many Chinese in the world, and China is becoming more obviously important to everyone."
Because Chinese is a language that rivals English in international usage, Shiell said, the sooner children are exposed to it the better.
Englewood Sun (FL) - September 5, 2008
Author: ANNE KLOCKENKEMPER ; Staff Writer
Learn Chinese in Bakersfield California
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Each Sunday from September to June, children and their parents learn to read and write one of the world's most difficult languages from volunteers at the Bakersfield Chinese School.
Students range in age from 5 years old to teenagers, with many parents also taking weekly classes at this school of about 50 students. Volunteers teach the classes and the entire school is run by volunteer principal Ling Liang. There are six classes from novice to advanced.
Bakersfield Californian, The (CA) - August 30, 2008
Author: AMBER CHIANG, Contributing writer
New Trend: Mandarin Language Classes For Kids
Chinese is becoming the new Spanish or French
Excerpt:
A handful of Chinese programs for kids are gaining popularity around Sacramento. But one program takes it a step forward. CBS13 went to Roseville where preschoolers are learning their A-B-Cs in Chinese.
Knowledge Beginnings will be offering one of the first Mandarin Immersion programs for preschoolers. Bergamo Montessori School already offers a similar program for preschool and kindergarten.
Parents believe a nation of a billion people, a third of the world's population, is bound to be a growing part of their kids' lives. A recent study forecasts China's economy will surpass the U.S. by 2035, when these children will be adults in their late 20's and early 30's.
"I think it's the language of the future, for business, for science, and getting a head of it now is the best time," says Suzanne Ayers, a parent.
"I thought it was different at first and thought, what about Spanish? But, what I learned, it's going to be the next international language and think about the population and seeing the Olympics, I thought, wow, that makes sense,"says Pantea Dunn, another parent.
CBS13 (Roseville, CA) - Aug 28, 2008
Author - Anny Hong
Two schools to embrace Mandarin in New Orleans
Excerpt:
St. Martin's Episcopal School on Airline Drive in Metairie will begin the yearlong Mandarin Enrichment Program.
St. Andrew's Episcopal School on Oak Street in New Orleans added the Chinese language to its curriculum for sixth and seventh grades in 2007. This year it will offer the course to sixth, seventh and eighth graders.
Qing Yang teaches Chinese language and culture classes in both schools. She also teaches Chinese language at the University of New Orleans and the Academy of Chinese Studies.
Times-Picayune, The (New Orleans, LA) - August 21, 2008
Author: Tina Soong
More Schools In Toledo Ohio To Offer Chinese
Educators see it as a language of growing importance
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As Asia increase its global presence, educators in metro Toledo are quickly adding Mandarin Chinese to their list of language offerings.
Ottawa Hills and Sylvania are the latest school districts to begin offering the world's most widely spoken first language.
Meanwhile, Genoa, Springfield, St. Francis, St. Ursula, and Maumee Valley Country Day School will continue with their second year of Mandarin instruction. St. John's will begin offering Chinese III. But all trail Toledo Public Schools' Start High School. It began offering Mandarin Chinese more than 15 years ago.
In 2006, the Ohio Department of Education received $470,000 over three years to establish pilot programs for Mandarin instruction among students in kindergarten through fourth grade. One year after its inception, the number of Ohio public school children studying Chinese had more than tripled, from 777 to 2,287, state officials report.
Paulita Fernandez, a Chinese teacher at St. Francis who was born in Taiwan, says her students learn about 230 characters a year. They use word processing functions to type in Chinese. For homework, they speak into recording devices.
There is broad consensus among educators that a proper education in Chinese should begin before high school.
Genoa has offered classes as young as kindergarten. Toledo Public and Springfield are offering them to middle school students for the first time this year.
Beginning language instruction early was a primary recommendation when government, education, and business leaders across Ohio convened last year to discuss the state's foreign language needs.
Blade, The (Toledo, OH) - August 18, 2008
Author: ANGIE SCHMITT BLADE STAFF WRITER
Australian Prime Minister to Push Asian Language Learning
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Kevin Rudd, Australia's Prime Minister, has called on Australians to go Asian and learn regional languages such as Chinese and Japanese.
"I am committed to making Australia the most Asia-literate country in the collective West," he announced in Singapore.
Labor went to the last election promising $62 million for new Asian language courses in schools. But Mr Rudd's new promise raises the commitment and there is sure to be a push for extra funding.
Mr Rudd speaks Mandarin which he uses often when touring in the region and did it again yesterday at a press conference.
Courier Mail, The (Brisbane, Australia) - August 13, 2008
Author: Clinton Porteous IN SINGAPORE
Mandarin Chinese programs in San Diego public schools
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Barnard Elementary School, 2930 Barnard St., teaches the Mandarin Chinese language and culture as part of the school's magnet program; the first of its kind for San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) elementary schools, according to district officials.
Dana Middle School grades five and six also will start new Mandarin language classes this year, and Point Loma High School, 2335 Chatsworth St., will begin two Mandarin language courses with an enrollment of 60 students already, school officials said.
Corriea Middle School, 4302 Valeta St., plans to pick up continuing language courses starting next year for students coming from Dana.
At Barnard, students spend about 40 minutes a day learning the language and culture through calligraphy, music, drama, festivals and physical education, according to school officials.
San Diego High's business school currently has a Mandarin magnet program.
The Barnard Elementary Mandarin Chinese magnet program fits into a larger strategy to expand the magnet curriculum throughout the school district.
The Peninsula Beacon - August 13, 2008
Author - Sebastian Ruiz
Three-year-old tots take a great leap forward
Mandarin is so popular with a school's pupils that it will be compulsory for the infants too, says Damian Whitworth
Excerpt:
Richard Cairns, headmaster of Brighton College, announced last year that all pupils joining the senior school at 13 would study Mandarin. He is so delighted by the students' accomplishments that he is putting it on the timetable for everyone. Three-year-olds starting in the nursery will find that Mandarin is mandatory. They will have at least one lesson a week.
Brighton College is believed to be the first school in the country to make Mandarin compulsory for all pupils. It is in the vanguard of a mini boom in a subject that its champions believe must become a key language on the curriculum everywhere.
"Mandarin is a tonal language and children find that much easier when they are younger." says Cairns. "The Mandarin teachers have said that if they had them when they were three, four, five, they could get them speaking fluently."
Last week Alan Johnson said that he was planning to accept the proposals of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) that pupils aged 11 to 14 should no longer be compelled to study a European language but could choose other world languages such as Mandarin or Urdu.
Cairns believes it is crucial that students learn the language and culture of "the emerging giant in the East". If children have a command of only 1,000 words, it will open doors. I want everyone to have that benefit. The world doesn't come to us any more; we have to go to the world.
The Times Online (UK) - Feb 12, 2007
Mandarin learning soars outside China
In just five years, the number of non-Chinese people learning Mandarin Chinese has soared to 30 million. What is fuelling this expansion, and will it change the status of English as a global language?
Excerpt:
Kailan Shu Lucas coordinates Mandarin lessons for 12 London schools and believes that the increase in children learning Chinese is a career calculation made by parents.
In London, the parents of most of the non-Chinese students studying Mandarin Chinese are from the finance industry. The belief is that China is not just a new rival, but a new provider, not just a UK phenomenon - in the US too, numbers of teenagers taking Chinese have rocketed.
In 1998, just 6,000 student enrolled in Mandarin programs. That figure is now 50,000.
"Students want to sign up for it; parents are asking for it; communities are asking for it," said Brett Lovejoy, of the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages.
Despite the big increase, most analysts agree Chinese is not about to replace English as the "global language" in the immediate future.
"A thousand years ago, people would have said it would be absurd that Latin would not be spoken in 1,000 years' time. But we know that has happened. It can only take 100 years or so for the language balance of power to shift." said professor David Crystal, a leading authority on how languages work and how they change.
"Money talks. Currently, the language money talks is the dollar. But it might not always be that way."
BBC News - January 9, 2007
Non-Asians Show a Growing Interest in Chinese Courses
Excerpt:
San Francisco - The private Chinese-American International School in San Francisco teaches subjects half in Mandarin and half in English. It teaches prekindergarten through eighth grade and offers instruction in all subjects - from math to music. The curriculum also includes Chinese history, culture and language studies, and in the 25 years since the school was founded, it has attracted mainly Asian-American children. But in the past few years, it has seen rapid growth in the enrollment of non-Asians.
School officials attribute the changes largely to a growing awareness of China as a global economic force, and to a strong sense among parents that learning Chinese could help their children professionally. As Andrew Corcoran (head of the school) said, " studying Chinese is looked at as a long-term benefit."
For similar reasons, Chinese language classes are increasingly popular across the country in public schools. Kentucky, Minnesota, Washington, Ohio, Kansas and West Virginia were developing curriculums for public schools.
Even so-called heritage schools, which have historically provided immigrant children with Chinese language and culture instruction on weekends and after public school, are gaining non-Asian students. For example, until three years ago, all but five or six of the roughly 120 students at the Chinese School of Delaware were Chinese-Americans who spoke Chinese at home, said Tommy Lu, the school's principal. This year, nearly 30 students are non-Chinese, he said.
When Mandarin, the official language of China, was first offered in Chicago public schools in 1999, about 250 students enrolled, said Bob Davis, director of the Chicago school system's Chinese Connections Program. Today, nearly 6,000 public school students, out of roughly 421,000, study Mandarin, he said, the majority black or Hispanic.
In Connecticut this year, about 3,000 students, most non-Asian, are studying Mandarin in about 16 public schools, said Mary Ann Hansen of the state's Department of Education, a 10-fold increase from 300 students in 2004. Another half-dozen schools are considering offering Mandarin for the first time next fall, she said.
New York Times - Nov 29, 2006
Author - Natasha Degen
Teaching Mandarin for a 'Chinese Century'
With China emerging as an economic superpower, some educators believe that learning Chinese -- the most widely spoken language in the world -- will give students an edge.
Excerpt:
Proponents of teaching Chinese in public schools point to the experience of U.S. automakers and their early forays into the Chinese market. The American firms lost ground quickly to smaller Korean automakers. "It was the Koreans' knowledge, not only of the culture, but of the language and the ways of doing business in China, that gave them the upper hand," says Michael Levine, head of education programs for the Asia Society. "It wasn't so much the quality of their product as it was the quality of their preparations to make the deals."
With that in mind, Washington has stepped in. A Senate bill would pump more than $1 billion into Chinese-language programs and help train new teachers. Right now, there simply aren't enough to meet demand.
For some parents, it's never too early to expand those horizons. They are hiring Chinese-speaking nannies to care for their infants to hopefully give the children a head start in what some are already calling the "Chinese Century."
National Public Radio (NPR) - Feb 6, 2006
Author - Eric Weiner (Day to Day)
