North Carolina: Chinese is state's fastest growing foreign language course

[Francis Hult]

Via lgpolicy...
 

More students learning Chinese in school
Chinese is state's fastest growing foreign language course


By Justin Vick
jvick at independenttribune.com
Sunday, June 8, 2008


A.L. Brown High School will offer Mandarin Chinese classes in the fall
through a distance learning partnership with the North Carolina School
of Science and Math in Durham. About a dozen Kannapolis students are
enrolled to learn how to speak, read and write Chinese. The honors
course will convene at A.L. Brown's Cyber Campus, where students will
interact with a teacher via videoconference. "This will help give our
students a greater awareness of world cultures," said A.L. Brown
principal Debra Morris.
More students in North Carolina's public schools are being exposed to
Chinese as China's economy continues to strengthen.
"Chinese is seen as an important language for the 21st century," said
Ann Marie Gunter, second language consultant for the N.C. Department
of Public Instruction. "The business world needs more speakers of
languages like Chinese to be competitive in the global economy."

While enrollment in Chinese courses lags behind Spanish, French,
Latin, German and Japanese, it quadrupled in 2006-07, making it the
fastest growing language offered in North Carolina, Gunter said. Most
Chinese language programs are offered in the state's largest school
systems, such as Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Guilford, Union, Wake and
Winston-Salem/Forsyth. Distance learning allows smaller school
districts like Kannapolis City Schools to offer them as well.

Full story:
http://www.independenttribune.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=CIT%2FMGArticle%2FCIT_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173355644322&path=!news


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