Chinese for Kids 
With So Many Languages, Why Should My Children Learn Chinese?
This August, China made a big splash—well, another one—in world news. The New York Times reported that the country’s economy has grown to become the second-largest in the world. Previously, Japan had occupied the number two slot, and while the United States remains at the top, economists expect it to share the spotlight with China by 2030. Never has there been a more appropriate time to encourage Chinese for kids. Aside from the delights that come with learning any language, Chinese for kids offers them unique access to a blossoming and increasingly influential country.
Hold on a minute, some parents may object. Isn’t English the international lingua franca, especially in the business world? And isn’t English widely spoken and taught in China already? The answer to both questions is yes, but with a caveat. The Wall Street Journal reports that over 300 million Chinese citizens are studying English, and the market for English in China is expected to grow. Even so, a demand for English abroad is no argument against Chinese for kids here in the US. Quite the contrary! If so many Chinese speakers are making an effort to learn our own language, the least we can do is encourage the interest shown by our children in Chinese. Besides, isn’t it just a teensy bit arrogant to assume that the presence of your own language in other countries means you don’t have to bother with theirs?
Such self-complacency has long stereotyped the American citizen. A joke popular even in the United States captures this unfavorable characterization: What do you call someone who knows three languages? Trilingual. What do you call someone who knows two languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who knows one language? American. The news of the China’s rapid economic growth reminds us that an indifferent attitude toward other countries and languages is an increasingly impractical one. The call in 2009 from China and other developing nations for an international currency to replace the dollar underscores the movement away from a US-centric economic and political model.
Children Learning Chinese - Numbers On The Rise
The good news beneath these shifting sands is that globalization opens minds and encourages intercultural exchange. New opportunities present themselves to eager learners, and nowhere is this potential richer than with Chinese for kids. Within the past decade, the availability of Chinese in American schools has increased dramatically. A New York Times article in January called attention to "a rush by schools in all parts of America to offer instruction in Chinese."
The article cited a study from the Center for Applied Linguistics indicating that “among America’s approximately 27,500 middle and high schools offering at least one foreign language, the proportion offering Chinese rose to 4 percent, from 1 percent, from 1997 to 2008.” CAL director Nancy C. Rhodes believes that this sudden rise affects more than students of Chinese. The demand for Chinese at the secondary level is "really changing the language education landscape of this country," says Rhodes
Confucious Classroom Promotes Chinese for Children
Efforts to implement Chinese for kids at an even earlier educational stage are also causing changes. One ambitious initiative, known as Confucius Classroom, has garnered national attention in recent months. An educational program founded and funded by the Chinese government, Confucius Classroom supports the study of China and Chinese in roughly two hundred schools throughout the US. At a time when many state budgets are tight, the availability of subsidized teachers is a godsend.
Neuroscientist Andrea Mechelli, PhD, who led the study, explained her findings to BBC News: “It means that older learners won’t be as fluent as people who learned earlier in life.” Many other experts and educators agree with Dr. Mechelli. Teaching Italian to children while they’re still young will give them better chances of attaining proficiency and a native accent.
Just ask California. The Washington Times reported that Cederlane Middle School, located in a town not far from Los Angeles, struck a deal with Hanban, an affiliate of the Chinese Ministry of Education that oversees Confucius Classroom. Offering Chinese for kids at Cederlane means “$30,000 a year for language and culture programs at Cedarlane school, along with about 1,000
textbooks, CDs and other educational materials,” The Times announced. Local school board member Norman Hsu and many in his district welcomed the grant from Hanban, because they “knew that money for a needed expansion of its language program at Cedarlane would not be forthcoming from the cash-strapped state government.”
Chinese for Kids At Home
If a school or program such as Confucius Classroom makes Chinese available for kids in your community, wonderful. If not, remember that other learning resources abound. Native speakers living abroad often teach classes or offer private lessons, and the Internet provides access to a host of products designed for learners of all ages. MUZZY has been quick to recognize the growing prominence of Chinese and offers an exciting curriculum in Mandarin Chinese for kids. The animated BBC character Muzzy leads children through lively stories and songs to jumpstart the learning process. Under his guidance, the foreign sounds of Chinese will quickly become “ko-kou-ko-le,” or “happiness in the mouth.”
Mandarin or Cantonese?
One choice that confronts parents considering Chinese for their kids is which dialect to select. Mandarin and Cantonese are the two most familiar to westerners, but what’s the difference? In an interview, Mark Csikszentmihalyi, now Professor of Chinese at the University of California—Berkelely, described Mandarin as the “lingua franca” of China. For this reason, Mandarin is the dialect most commonly studied by non-native speakers. It is also the dialect used by the Chinese media, government, and most of the country’s educational institutions. Cantonese, on the other hand, is spoken in China’s Guangdong province, Hong Kong, and many emigrant communities overseas. Csikszentmihalyi says that for many, learning Mandarin first makes sense, given its simpler intonation system and shared alphabet with Cantonese. With a year or two of Mandarin under their belts, eager students can move on to other dialects or even a new language. Think of Chinese for kids as the first step on a journey whose possible destinations are infinite. On that journey, let the wisdom of Confucius act as a guide: “Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”
Email This Article to a Friend
