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 http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4143590.html

Learning Chinese seen as future tool
By LORI ARATANI

WASHINGTON - Pearl Terrell was so determined her great-granddaughter
Shayla begin learning Chinese that she spent two weeks this summer
driving 100 miles a day from her home in West Virginia to a middle
school in Frederick County, Md., so the soon-to-be fifth-grader could
learn the language.

The U.S. government flew 10 teachers to Washington from China this
month and gave them a five-day crash course on how to teach —
American-style — before dispatching them to schools across the country.

Although the number may seem small, the scramble to recruit and train
these teachers for the start of this school year underscores the
urgency the Bush administration is placing on establishing Chinese
programs in U.S. classrooms.

After years of insisting that the world speak English, Americans have
awakened to a far more global playing field and the need for
specialized languages, economists say. And nowhere is that more evident
than with China.

"China is being mentioned everywhere in relation to everything from
business, international affairs — even the war on terror," said Kenneth
Lieberthal, professor of political science at the University of
Michigan. "You buy things in the store — they're made in China. ... No
one is hearing about France as the way of the future."

More than 1.3 billion people worldwide speak Chinese, and 885 million
of them speak Mandarin, China's official language and dominant dialect.

In the United States, only about 24,000 students in grades seven
through 12 study the language, according to a report from the Asia
Society, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that seeks to build ties
between the United States and Asia.

But educators say those students reflect a steady growth in the number
of Americans wanting to learn Chinese.

"People are finally beginning to pay attention to Mandarin as a major
cultural and economic prospect for students," said Michael Levine
executive director of education for the Asia Society.

In January, President Bush unveiled a $114 million initiative aimed at
increasing the number of so-called critical languages, such as Chinese
and Arabic, taught in U.S. schools.

The 10 Chinese teachers are the first recruits in a program the Bush
administration hopes to expand to include teachers of Russian, Korean,
Farsi and other critical languages.

"This is the largest initiative of its kind focused on language in half
a century," said Thomas Farrell, deputy assistant secretary for
academic programs at the State Department.

Chinese-language courses are not new. But what is new is that interest
in such courses no longer comes exclusively from Asian parents, who
viewed them as a way for their children to maintain ties to their
culture.

Increasingly, it's non-Asian parents who want their children to learn
Chinese, citing the desire to remain competitive for the best jobs.


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