[EDLING:1398] Chinese a siren song for those watching global growth

[Francis M Hult]

via lg-policy...

> >From the Morning Call, Allentown, PA[March 30, 2006]
> 
> 
> Chinese a siren song for those watching global growth
> 
> In Moravian Academy's Lower School building, which stands next to
> weathered 18th century tombstones in Bethlehem's historic downtown, the
> clock is ticking. L.J. Hurley, Evan Burlew and two other third-graders
> hunch over their desks to look at the Chinese characters in their colored
> workbooks. Haiyan Gao, the teacher, points to a page and asks, Shian zhai
> je dia? "Can you repeat the sentence?" Evan asks. "It's a time, not a
> sentence," L.J. corrects, understanding that her question was: What time
> is it?
> 
> The four 9-year-olds are studying Mandarin because their parents and
> principal see the growing importance of China in the 21st century. Like
> many other educators across the country, Lower School Director Ella Jane
> Kunkle believes the Chinese language will play an even bigger role in the
> global marketplace by the time her third-graders become adults. In the
> past year, politicians and policy experts also have fallen in line like
> Chinese dominoes, realizing the education system isn't keeping up with the
> world because there aren't enough U.S. students studying Chinese and
> enough teachers to teach it.
> 
> Business is driving the demand. Lehigh Valley companies that deal with
> China -- like their counterparts around the world -- see a mounting need
> for employees who speak Mandarin to help them connect with the country
> that has the fastest-growing economy on the planet. "I was doing a lot of
> reading, thinking about what these students will need in 20 years," Kunkle
> said. "I thought language will be very, very important, especially the
> nontraditional languages." For now, private Moravian Academy and the
> nonprofit, volunteer-run Huaxia Chinese School at Northampton Community
> College might be the only schools in the Lehigh Valley teaching Chinese.
> And several educators argue that the wrong languages are being taught in
> the public schools.
> 
> Joseph Lewis, superintendent of the Bethlehem Area School District, said
> he'd like to offer students Chinese, but he can't find a teacher, so the
> district continues to teach European languages. "I think we're teaching
> the wrong languages in many instances," he said.  "I'd argue those
> languages have run their course because French, German are not part of the
> global economy." A study by the nonprofit Asia Society found more than 1
> million U.S.  students learn French, which is spoken by 80 million people.
> By comparison, 24,000 students in seventh through 12th grade learn
> Chinese, spoken by 1.3 billion people.
> 
> "Learning Chinese is one step we need to be engaged in a global economy,"
> said Michael Levine, executive director of the Asia Society. "It is time
> for the United States to really make international education and language
> a part of U.S. education reform, if we want to compete and respect our
> colleagues and allies in other countries." Many Westerners have difficulty
> learning Chinese because it is a tonal language, meaning that a word's
> pitch matters as much as its pronunciation. In English, pitch is used only
> for emphasis. In Chinese, it affects the entire meaning of the word. The
> Pennsylvania Department of Education does not know how many certified
> Chinese-language teachers are in the state or how many districts offer
> Chinese-language courses, which is what several Lehigh Valley districts
> are trying to do.
> 
> Parkland School District is in preliminary discussions with Lehigh
> University in Bethlehem and other higher education institutions to provide
> a Chinese-language instructor to teach a night course. Local school
> districts, however, might not need a teacher in the classroom.
> Northwestern Lehigh School District, with the help of the nonprofit Center
> for Advancing Partnerships in Education, is looking to set up an
> Internet-based distance learning Chinese course. It would be similar to a
> high school Japanese course the district established with Villanova
> University three years ago -- a course that Parkland will link to in the
> fall.
> 
> Jerry Richter, executive director of the Center for Advancing Partnerships
> in Education, a statewide consortium of educational and public
> institutions based in Allentown, said with a dearth of certified teachers,
> schools can take advantage of video conferencing. "With the technology
> today, it doesn't much matter where the instructors are," Richter said.
> Gao, the instructor at Moravian, is a Chinese-educated engineer who became
> a stay-at-home mother when she moved to Lower Macungie Township 14 years
> ago. While districts look for teachers like Gao, hundreds of children,
> mostly first-generation Chinese, have walked through the doors of Huaxia
> Chinese School-Lehigh Valley Branch at NCC.
> 
> The school was founded in 1999 by a small group of Chinese immigrants to
> ensure their first-generation children retained their native language and
> heritage. The program, held Saturdays, has grown from one class to seven
> classes, three for native Chinese speakers and three -- soon to be four --
> classes for non-native speakers. "When we started this seven years ago,
> actually, we didn't expect so much interest from the local community,"
> said Xiaoyi He, 40, of Orefield, an Air Products and Chemicals engineer
> who serves as a volunteer vice principal at Huaxia. "At the time, the
> school was for Chinese families, but in the last year, we've seen more
> interest outside of the Chinese community." Since the technology explosion
> across the world in the late 1990s, China's communist government has
> loosened its control over the country's economy and banking system, with
> dramatic results. China now has the second-largest economy in the world.
> 
> Asia is the fastest-growing market for Air Products, which provides
> training in Mandarin and other languages and employs about 1,050 people in
> China, up from about 700 in 2003. Research and manufacturing work in China
> is expected to keep growing, said Douglas Moyer, the Trexlertown company's
> manager of university relations.  That will continue to create
> opportunities for people who know the language, he said. "Our Chinese
> employees speak English. Would it not make sense for us to be able to
> [speak Chinese]?" he asked.
> 
> Victaulic Co. of America, the Forks Township maker of pipe couplings and
> fittings, has done business in China and other Asian countries for more
> than 20 years. The company employs 250 people at sales offices, warehouses
> and manufacturing facilities in China, including a plant in Dalian that it
> opened last year. Agere Systems, which makes chips, has long viewed China
> as a source of clients and as a place to operate facilities. The company
> based in Hanover Township, Lehigh County, opened its first Chinese office
> in 2002. It now has three locations there that employ 100 people in sales
> and chip design. In his best-selling book, "The World is Flat," Thomas
> Friedman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist, explores how
> technology has shrunk the planet's size since the fall of the Berlin Wall
> in 1989, allowing countries like China and India to participate and
> compete in a global economy.
> 
> In a telephone interview, Friedman said Americans need to understand the
> Chinese language and culture. It's a fact, he said, China will continue to
> manufacture more products for Americans and buy more American products. He
> said U.S. companies will need educated workers who can communicate with
> workers in Russia, China and India working on the same problem. "I think
> it's going to be one of the biggest middle-class jobs -- collaborators,"
> Friedman said. "Collaborators are people who are good at working as part
> of global knowledge, manufacturing or supply chains." Moravian Academy
> third-grader L.J. has no idea he could be part of this education
> revolution. All he knows is the Mandarin characters are harder to memorize
> than the pronunciations, and his mother likes it when he speaks Chinese.
> 
> "I used to study two different languages, French and Spanish, at my other
> school," L.J. said. "I'll probably try to continue. When we go to New York
> and try to go to Chinatown, usually I get money or a reward for [saying]
> xie xie. It means 'thank you.' "
> 
> Reporters Kurt Blumenau and Jeanne Bonner contributed to this story.
> 
> 
> 
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