[EDLING:1206] Teachers need help with Asia

[Francis M Hult]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3556730a7694,00.html

Teachers need help with Asia

31 January 2006  
By KRISTI GRAY

Many secondary school teachers lack the confidence to include Asian content in their 
classes, despite a curriculum requirement for them to do so, a new report says. 

Although it was generally accepted that teaching Asian studies was important in a time of 
growing contact with Asia, the report by the Asian New Zealand Foundation found there were 
still low levels of Asian content in many curriculum areas. 

Focus groups reported many teachers lacked confidence and had limited knowledge about the 
Asian aspects of their subject matter. 

Asia New Zealand Foundation schools co-ordinator Janice Chin said results did not vary 
greatly from those found in a primary-school survey two years ago. 

"Teachers want to teach subjects properly and hesitate if they feel they are 
under-prepared or ill-equipped," Chin said. 

"There is obviously a great need for more professional support and collaboration with 
educational organisations, as well as with the wide community." 

The three greatest barriers to inclusion were availability of professional development, 
the lack of up-to-date resources and assessment commitments, Chin said. 

AdvertisementAdvertisementThings motivating teachers to include more Asian content were 
Asian students in the class, student interest and current events. 

A move by the Ministry of Education to ensure that all schools catering for years seven to 
10 offer language programmes by 2008 could improve the situation. 

Gail Spence, senior language adviser at the ministry, said while all students would not be 
required to learn a second language, they must be available in the curriculum. 

Currently, 95 per cent of secondary schools, 64% of intermediate and 42% of primary 
schools offered a second language, she said. 

Luba Roth, founder of the Christchurch Chinese Language Teachers' Association and head of 
Chinese at St Margaret's College, said learning the language was the most important way to 
promote Asian studies. 

Culture and the social side of life were taught as part of learning the language, she 
said. 

Many schools at Year 7 had already introduced a programme using tapes to encourage simple 
use of Chinese language, which was a positive move, Roth said. 

"However, there is still a need to have more schools teaching the Chinese language -  in 
both secondary and primary schools," she said. "We hope that when the learning-languages 
curriculum comes in, more schools will think about teaching Chinese. 

"Currently, we have the teachers available but not enough schools for them to teach in. 
However, the Christchurch College of Education is now no longer training teachers in 
Chinese, so there could be a shortage in the future." 

A perception Chinese was difficult to learn was a barrier to its introduction, she said. 
"It is different rather than difficult - as it requires learning a new alphabet, rather 
than using the same one as English."