The World Trend
Today, there is a 1.4billion Chinese speaking population all over the world. With the rapid economic growth in Mainland China, more and more people are willing to set up or travel to China for business and pleasure. No matter what the purposes are, learning Chinese has become a trend for many businessmen, travelers and students. According to a survey, over 2,500 universities in 100 countries are now offering Chinese courses. Moreover, “The Office of Chinese Language Council International” pointed out that over a hundred million foreigners will learn Chinese by 2010.
In the United State, the “Star Talk Program” was initiated by the government due to the national security issue. It provides intensive implementation and evaluation plans in Chinese and Arabic languages for over 400 high school students as well as professional development opportunities for over 400 teachers and/or perspective teachers in specific these two languages. According to Space ALC (http://www.alc.co.jp/cj/index.html), there are nearly 52% of Japanese population are learning Chinese because of their interests and in addition of 17% learn Chinese for business purposes. In Korea, more than 30,000 people are learning Chinese each year. In 2007, there are about 33% Korean students studying in China. In Europe, the Chinese learning ratio grows 20% in recent years. There are about 130 high schools offer Chinese courses in France and the British government says that 200 schools will offer Chinese courses in five year.
Growth of college students taking Chinese course between 1960 and 2006 in the U.S.
The problems are…
Learning Chinese is a big wave and has extended to many non-Chinese groups from adults to children and from business to social contacts. However, it is a common problem for many people to find a qualified teacher. The “Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China” analyzed that there is a shortage of 100,000 Chinese teachers in Malaysia and Indonesia. At the same time, the demand for Chinese teacher is increasing in Korea, Japan, Philippine, Thailand, North America, Europe and Australia. In total, the insufficient of Chinese teacher today has up to 900,000 around the globe. Moreover, Chinese is a very complicated language which contains with hieroglyph, self-explanatory characters, pictophonetic characters, associative compounds, mutually explanatory characters and phonetic loan characters. The four tones of pronunciation is especially a disaster for most beginners. To pronounce or write Chinese correctly, it is extremely important to choose the proper learning materials. There are some learning materials in the market; however, a large percentage of them do not have a systematic instructional concept which is not easily used or will cause improper learning results in the future.
The alternative solution, Thanks to the new technology.
A traditional way of learning Chinese is to take a local Chinese course, to hire a tutor or to google online and learn by oneself. As mentioned above, the problems including the shortage of qualified Chinese teachers, the quality of learning materials and the services. Thanks to today’s technology that computer and Internet are wildly used, the latest solution is to learn Chinese language from the native speakers through Internet. Distance learning facilitating with synchronous and asynchronous tools is a smart solution in helping people to learn in different locations and time zones. A quasi-government organization, Institute for Information Industry in Taiwan, is launching the Global Multicultural Heritage Project (GMHP) which intends to trigger students’ interests on Chinese culture initially and then rise students’ willing in learning Chinese. By using the latest synchronous technology together with different multimedia elements, the students from Minisink Valley Intermediate School in the U.S. are the fist target learners who took 10 hours lessons from April 9 to May 16 in 2008. The final result shows positive feedback from the students and teachers in Minisink Valley Intermediate School and the instructors locate in Taiwan. The success was also reported by the local news in the U.S. ( See http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080508/COMM/805080316). This project has demonstrated that it is possible and effective to solve the training problems by using Internet and multimedia to facilitate and improve the quality of Chinese teaching and learning.
Chinese teacher, Ling Ling, is teaching the Minisink student through Internet.
Learn Chinese before you leap
“When in Rome, do as Romans do”. No matter you are planning to work, to travel or to study in China, it would be a good idea to learn the culture, the language and the customs before you go there. Especially if you are planning to do business with Chinese, you’d better know a list of “dos” and “don’ts” in China. For example, “red” represents fortunate in general and “four” is not a good number because the pronunciation is close to the word “dead”.
“The world is flat” is a book written by Thomas L. Friedman who analyzes the progress phenomenon of globalization in 21st century. With the latest Internet technology, everyone can leap over the barriers of locations and time to learn any subject at anytime and anywhere. Vendors such as “Tutor Ming”(http://www.tutorming.com/), “IQ Chinese”(http://www.iqchinese.com/) , “Chinese Learning Associations” (http://www.chineseassociate.com/english/index.php), “LiveABC” (www.LiveABC.com) are providing synchronous and asynchronous Chinese learning solutions. One can sit in front of his or her computer without flying thousand miles to learn Chinese. Are you ready to land China? Learn Chinese before you leap!
