U.S. SCHOOLS UNPREPARED TO MEET RISING DEMAND FOR CHINESE LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION, ACCORDING TO NEW ASIA SOCIETY STUDY

NEW YORK, NY, July 12, 2005 – Recognition of China’s dramatic rise is fueling a new demand for Chinese language speakers. Yet schools throughout the United States are largely unprepared to meet this need, lacking qualified teachers, programs, or creative uses of modern educational technologies, according to a new study released today by Asia Society.

The report, entitled ExpandingChinese Language Capacity in the United States, recommends a national commitment to investment in teaching Chinese language and culture. Created by Asia Society’s education division, an international education leader in the K-12 field, the report documents a growing consensus among national security and foreign language experts, as well as business leaders and educators. Its analysis of the status of Chinese language instruction concludes that the current infrastructure to support recruitment of teachers and students and the growth of high quality programs is woefully inadequate. The study suggests short- and long-range strategies to address the question: What would it take to have five percent of American high school students learning Chinese by 2015?

The release of the report comes at a time when the growing importance of Asia is being recognized as one of the central facts of the 21 st Century. China, with its tremendous economic growth—total U.S. trade with China exceeded $230 billion in 2004, second only to trade with Canada and Mexico—is fundamental to this shift.

As China rushes toward superpower status, American schools and government officials are growing increasingly concerned by the lack of expertise in a language considered critical to national prosperity and security. The most recent data show only 24,000 students in grades 7-12 study Chinese, a language spoken by 1.3 billion people worldwide. In contrast, more than one million students learn French, a language spoken by only 80 million people. “Our nation’s schools are locked in a time warp. By ignoring critical languages such as Chinese and the essential cultural knowledge needed to succeed, our school systems are out of step with new global realities,” said Charles Kolb, President of the Committee for Economic Development.

The U.S. State Department has designated Chinese a critical language and in late May, U.S. Senators Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) introduced the United States-China Cultural Engagement Act, proposing $1.3 billion in federal funds to provide for Chinese language and culture instruction in American schools.

“Interest in learning Chinese among American youth and their parents has grown dramatically in the past five years,” said Vivien Stewart, Vice President for Education at Asia Society. “But schools don’t know how to start and sustain a Chinese language program, and there is an acute shortage of certified teachers.”

Between 1998 and 2002, the number of college students studying Chinese rose 20 percent to just over 34,000. And in a fall 2004 College Board survey of high schools, 2,400 schools expressed interest in offering the Advanced Placement courses in Chinese language (Mandarin) and culture when it becomes available in 2006. “We expected a few hundred schools to express interest in offering the Chinese AP, so these results were eye-opening,” said College Board President Gaston Caperton. “Americans have been the world’s most successful students and entrepreneurs for the past century. We have to envision a new set of global skills, which include understanding world languages and cultures, to retain our edge in an increasingly interconnected economy.”

Besides the new AP course, other developments in the field include the model Chinese K-16 Pipeline Project of the National Security Education Program and CHENGO, an online games-based program for beginning Chinese, developed by the U.S. Department of Education and the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China and available free of charge to pilot schools.

Some of the key findings and recommendations made in the report include:

• Lack of qualified teachers is the key bottleneck in building capacity. Higher education institutions should create fast track or alternate route certification programs for U.S. Chinese speakers. States should expand visiting faculty programs for teachers from China, similar to those in other languages, and should create procedures to make it possible for U.S. teachers to become certified teachers of Chinese.

• In order to translate current interest into high-quality school programs, districts will need expert assistance to implement best practices. Programs need to start earlier, use more intensive research-based approaches, and include the communities of heritage language learners. Public education campaigns to raise awareness among educators, students, and parents of the growing importance of Chinese will be needed, as well as competitive seed funds to make programs available in less affluent school districts.

• Innovative uses of media and technology, such as distance education, online courses, and connections to students in China should be given high priority to complement classroom programs and broaden access.

• After the launch of Sputnik, the National Language Defense Education Act of 1958 suggested a range of strategies to meet the science and foreign-language needs of the day. Today’s global realities also require long-term national investments, similar to those in other fields deemed important to the nation.

Overall, the Asia Society report highlights the need for an expanded commitment to world languages, and especially Chinese, a language we as a nation can no longer afford to ignore.

Copies of the report are available online at www.internationaled.org or by contacting Marta Castaing, mcastaing@asiasoc.org or 212-327-9301.

About Asia Society
The Asia Society is an international, nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening relationships and deepening understanding among the peoples of Asia and the United States.

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