Some Georgia Schools Make Mandarin Mandatory

http://www.npr.org/2012/09/08/160028396/looking-to-future-ga-schools-require-mandarin

by vibrunazo • 14 years ago

35 49 14 years ago

squonk• 14 years ago

Not sure about the logic of this: "They will live in a world where China and India will have 50 percent of the world GDP. They will live in a world where, if they cannot function successfully in the Asian culture, they will pay a heavy price."

Today, the US + EU have about 50% of the world's GDP. Do Chinese kids pay a 'heavy price' because they cannot function successfully in the Western culture? It seems more like the heavy price is paid due to lack of economic integrity and opportunity in China. The importance is in getting a solid education. There will be plenty of work to do here in the US and in China.

Related topic: The Hong Kong Chinese don't want their kids to learn about about China: http://news.yahoo.com/hk-drops-china-education-plans-mass-pr...

fatjokes• 14 years ago

While I agree that their logic may be a bit suspect, your counterexample is also false.

Chinese kids who do not command at least passable English are barred from the best (or even slightly above-average) schools and jobs. So yes, they do pay a heavy price.

ssong• 14 years ago

For what it's worth, English is a mandatory subject for students in China. It's hard to predict what the political and economic climate will be like a few decades from now, but I'm pretty sure the number of Mandarin speakers will increase and Asia will still be a major influence on global economics.

I'm not sure if I agree with this decision given the circumstances of this particular school district, but I won't be surprised if we start to see other schools strongly encouraging Mandarin studies.

Let's not jump too quickly to politics. Mandarin is a language, and will be spoken by the Chinese regardless of politics. It is also spoken in many places outside of mainland China.

droithomme• 14 years ago

> English is a mandatory subject for students in China

Few of them learn it well enough using their rote methods to be of much use though. It's good to learn english as it is currently the lingua franca of the world. In europe German teens talk to their Swedish friends in English, just as Italians talk to the Croatians in English. It's used universally for communication.

I wonder though - are all English classes in China taught by american government representatives whose salaries are paid for by the United States? Do they also introduce American values as part of the classes?

I noticed the article said the classes, throughout the future, will be free to the schools because the Chinese Government (which is as we know run by the Communist Party) is paying for them and the teachers are being sent from mainland China.

Nothing seems odd about that to you?

I know, I know. I must be some "conspiracy nut" just to be asking whether the Chinese Communist Party completely financing and sending trained and educated Chinese Communist Party members to the US to teach poor american children to speak Chinese and understand modern Chinese perspectives defined by their government in order to "prepare for 2050" is a strange thing. It's safe to disregard these "crackpot ideas", right? Or is it.

learc835• 14 years ago

>It is also spoken in many places outside of mainland China.

Mandarin will definitely be a widely spoken language. But having studied some Mandarin in college, an average American doesn't have enough opportunities to interact with Mandarin speakers to make it a useful day to day skill.

And it's much harder to learn (for a native English speaker) than Spanish (or French or German). Given equivalent instruction the average student learning Spanish will be significantly further along.

whyenot• 14 years ago

I suspect the real motivation is that teaching Chinese is a lot cheaper than teaching another language.

Beijing wants to spread Mandarin abroad, and at just $16,000 per instructor per year, the price is right for Dallemand.

nekojima• 14 years ago

"Related topic: The Hong Kong Chinese don't want their kids to learn about about China"

That's a very wrong interpretation of the current events in HK. The parents and students are opposed to the National Education plan because it inaccurately presents recent mainland Chinese history and Chinese cultural values, is an attempt at brain washing (or 'wash brain' in local English) and is being used as a way of monitoring the political reliability of students & their teachers. This last point is a particular concern, as its an extension of the surveillance network & could be used to hinder job promotion and educational advancement.

seanmcdirmid6• 14 years ago

Yes. What the hk'ers are against is the "patriotic" education where the kids learn about Mao and how great the CCP (Chinese communist party) is. And I think they have a good point.

jbester• 14 years ago

Macon is a town with a large blue-collar population that lost most of the major industries in the last 15 years. This is part of a multi-pronged approach to get Foreign-owned companies to locate low-skill jobs in the city.

zachwill• 14 years ago

On a side note, Macon is actually a Code for America city this year (http://codeforamerica.org/2012-partners/macon/) and I'm one of three fellows working with the city. The speech superintendent Dallemand gave earlier this year detailing his plan was great (we spent all of February in Macon) — especially when you consider just how much scrutiny it's been under.

sciurus• 14 years ago

Wow, my old hometown makes HN. Both of my parents have taught public school in Bibb County, so I've followed this with some interest. You can read the entire "Macon Miracle' plan at http://bibb.k12.ga.us/stplan2.html

learc835• 14 years ago

I took some Mandarin in college, my younger brother is a linguist, and my much younger 8 year old sister has been in a Spanish immersion program since she was 5 (in a Georgia public school). I completely support more language education in public schools.

However, this superintendent really seems stuck on this "China as the future of the world" idea. It seems a bit short sighted to base policies solely on extrapolated trends.

If this were 1995, he'd be insisting that student's learn Japanese or they'd be suffering in a future economy dominated by Japan.

From personal experience, the majority of students just aren't going to get as much use from Mandarin as they would from Spanish. Furthermore, Mandarin is much harder for native English speakers to learn than Spanish--It takes much more instruction and practice to get to an equivalent level of competence.

grose2• 14 years ago

I agree 100%. I've had lots of foreign language learning experience. I love studying languages and I think that kids should have as much opportunity to do so as possible.

I have strong doubts that Chinese will ever become the lingua franca of business. It has language features that make it difficult for us Westerners to learn (mainly, tones that carry semantic meaning)... I think that Chinese people will be more motivated to learn English instead.

Also, who's to say China's economy won't crash and burn in the next 50 years? Forcing Mandarin on everyone is putting all your eggs in one basket. Learning a foreign language is a difficult thing, and one good way to keep motivated is to be truly interested in the culture of the country whose language you're studying. I'm all for mandatory foreign language education, but I think people should be able to choose a language they care about. They shouldn't have to take Chinese because it might be a big deal in the future. Learning any foreign language can open doors, not just Chinese. Take it from me, an American living in Japan.

nandemo• 14 years ago

I don't think linguistic features are very relevant. Historically, languages have become lingua franca primarily due to political and economical factors, and secondarily cultural factors. E.g. people living in the Soviet republics and communist Eastern Europe had to learn Russian, no matter how hard Russian was for them. Nowadays people all over the world learn English; for many of them, English is as hard as Chinese is to a native English speaker.

But I agree that it's not a given that China will be the superpower, and even if gets there, it's not clear that Mandarin will immediately become that important.

seanmcdirmid6• 14 years ago

If you want to do business in china, Chinese is sort of required. Considering the rising clout of china, it could become mandatory for work trade very quickly. Japan is much smaller (population) in comparison, and much more an island where you don't see many Japanese outside of Japan these days.

Chinese people are learning English, they are already better at it than the Japanese. But again, huge population, many of the powerful guys don't feel like learning or speaking English for face reasons.

Totally agree with you on language choice, learned Japanese in the 90s, never went anywhere with it. Mandarin has been much more rewarding. Take it from me, an American living in china.

cheshirecat• 14 years ago

China will take over US in GDP - that's likely. Whether it will become or would like to become a "superpower" is not clear.

But yes I don't think Mandarin is a good candidate for a global language. It is probably the most difficult language on this planet. Seriously, even the Chinese themseleves have trouble with it. I am Chinese and the last time I wrote long paragraphs of Chinese characters was at the College Extrance Exam (and whenever I mention this to friends everyone agrees). So if you ask me to write some less commonly used words I can only tell you I forgot - I have seen this happen many times to everyone. And the idioms - very hard for westerners without learning all the Classics and History, which are in Classical Chinese - think about Latin.

Chinese is beautiful though. Personally I think we probably have the most exquisite poems - the ancient Chinese spent more times on them than any other art forms or scientific researches. It was the highest among the high arts.

seanmcdirmid6• 14 years ago

Spoken Chinese is quite easy to learn if you already speak English, it's grammar is quite flexible.

Reading and writing is another matter, I'm almost fluent in conversation, but I can only write conversationally (e.g., SMS), Im basically illiterate otherwise.

Idioms are also a pain, but you don't need all of that to be functional, argue with taxi drivers, and impress at business meetings.

SkyMarshal2• 14 years ago

I agree in theory, but in practice Japan never had more than 50% of the population of the US. China has 400% of our population, and almost double that of the US and Europe combined (~700m vs ~1.2b).

That's a qualitative difference with significant ramifications. Their economy can and probably will crash, more than once, as most tend to do. But demographics is destiny.

jwilliams• 14 years ago

One anecdote to mix in -- I was at school in Australia in the '90s. Learning Japanese was heavily promoted as it was the big, growing economy at the time.

lrobb• 14 years ago

In the 80s high schools were pushing German.

stewie2• 14 years ago

In my opinion, Chinese grammar is way simpler than Spanish, German and many others. You have to tell the gender of every noun in Spanish ...

tzm• 14 years ago

I think there's a huge cultural education gap in the US regarding China. Requiring Mandarin at a basic level would help mitigate this while opening opportunities for students.

People should get their heads out of the sand..

talloaktrees• 14 years ago

I started taking Mandarin in college ten years ago. I have lived in Taiwan for six years, and I now speak and read near-native Chinese, an accomplishment I'm somewhat proud of.

Now I am teaching myself programming to prepare for a career when I return to the US.

Take from my anecdote what you will.

adinb• 14 years ago

Requiring a tonal language for young children is a great thing–typically adults that speak only non-tonal languages have a much, much harder time learning the tonal structures. I put this in the same category as teaching music to younger children (higher plasticity)

Besides, isnt this the first step to the Mandarin-English pidgin language spoken in Firefly? ;)

stretchwithme• 14 years ago

My experience learning languages in high school left me feeling that its a waste of time to learn a language for an hour a day.

Its much better to be immersed in a language for a month than spend three years learning it that way. And it takes less time altogether.

jakeonthemove• 14 years ago

It doesn't even really matter if China will become a superpower bigger than the US - since most of the production of physical products is there, it makes a lot of sense to teach children the language - it will make it so much easier to work in the future. I also still think that somewhat advanced economy classes in schools would be a great addition...

Some Georgia Schools Make Mandarin Mandatory

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