Confucius Institute at China Institute started its pilot
Mandarin teaching program on Monday at Shanghai's East China Normal
University with 16 teachers from elementary and secondary schools
and institutions of higher learning in the US.
Most of the 16 students are qualified teachers who already have
bachelor's degrees. They also have a good grasp of Mandarin and
some are of Chinese origin.
Course offerings during the program, which runs
from July 10 to August 18, include Chinese Phonology for Language
Teachers, Chinese Characters: Their Structure and Evolution,
Chinese Grammar and Teaching, and Chinese Literature.
At the end of the program, trainees should obtain 12
postgraduate academic credits, which would enable them to teach
Chinese in New York State public schools.
The program is primarily tailored to the needs of New York
public school teachers.
It is organized by Confucius Institute at China Institute, a
project between China Institute in America, an 80-year-old
not-for-profit educational and cultural institution located in New
York City, and China's National Office for Teaching Chinese as a
Foreign Language (NOCFL, or "Hanban"). The program is supported in
part through the generous funding of the Hanban.
According to the statistics from the Ministry of Education,
there are over 30 million people learning Chinese overseas, and more than 2,500
colleges in 100 countries now provide Chinese language courses.
To satisfy the needs of foreigners who want to learn Chinese,
China has, since 2002, set up a number of non-profit
Chinese-language learning institutions overseas. Names were
standardized in 2004 and they are now known as "Confucius
Institutes". These institutes aim to establish a bridge between
China and other countries by promoting Chinese language and
culture.
Zhou Ji, minister of education, said that 80 Confucius
Institutes and training programs have been launched in 36
countries, and another 99 organizations in 38 countries have
submitted their applications to set up.
Zhou pointed out that the Confucius Institute name has become a
brand widely recognized throughout the world. It is a place to
learn Chinese, and a source of information on China. It also serves
as a platform for communication and cooperation in education,
culture, economy and trade with China.
(China.org.cn by Xu Lin, July 12, 2006)