Tongfei Kou's Blog

Asked at the start of their first Chinese class what motivated them to take up the language, the students of the Institut de la Providence, a secondary school outside Namur in Belgium, give their new teacher varied answers.

“It’s a big country,” says one. “I’ve been to China and would like to go back,” ventures another.

The two dozen teenagers are part of a pilot project started this autumn in nine Belgian schools to promote Chinese language learning. More broadly, they are among hundreds of thousands of students in the west who are opting to learn Mandarin Chinese, often at the expense of traditional subjects such as Spanish or German.

“One way or another, China is the future,” says Olaf Mertens, headmaster. “Over 1bn people live in China. Surely, students should be exposed to their language and culture?”

China’s rapid economic rise is gradually translating into a greater presence in European and US classrooms, from a very small base as recently as 10-15 years ago.

In 1997 about one in 300 US elementary schools taught Mandarin; by 2008 the figure was close to one in 30, according to the Center for Applied Linguistics. The rise is reflected in numbers sitting Sat II standardised tests, up 50 per cent since 2001. Advanced placement programmes run by the US College Board have grown more than 2.5 times.

In England and Wales, Chinese A-level exam entries rose 36 per cent in 2011 alone, the fastest of any leading language. With 3,237 candidates, one in 11 final-year language exams are for Chinese. About one in six schools in Britain offers some form of Chinese tuition, government figures show.

From a marginal position 15 years ago, Chinese has imposed itself as the fourth leading language behind French, Spanish and German – which on current trends it will overtake by the end of the decade.

The rate of take-up of Chinese varies for each country. This is influenced by student demand – or, more often, that of their parents – but also often by the rigidity of government-imposed academic curricula.

“In some countries, such as France, demand to learn Chinese can partly be put down to a long-standing interest in Chinese culture. But the recent rapid rise in places such as Britain is mostly for utilitarian reasons, linked to China’s new role on the global stage,” says Xinsheng Zhang, director of the language centre at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

More often than not it is a perception that knowledge of Chinese will be an asset in tomorrow’s job market that is driving demand, he says.

Both in Europe and the US, regional discrepancies are wide when it comes to interest in Chinese. Richer, more cosmopolitan areas tend to have higher demand: California and New York, partly because of their large migrant populations, have the highest figures in the US. Conversely, European countries such as Italy or Spain show less interest than in parts of northern Europe.

In July, Jan Björklund, Swedish education minister, floated the idea of every school offering Chinese. “It will be much more important, from an economic perspective, than French or Spanish,” he told the Dagens Industri newspaper.

The idea was put on hold when sceptics pointed to the tiny pool of teachers able to teach Chinese.

Some also wonder whether the rise of Chinese language learning is too closely linked to the country’s recent economic success – with the risk that it could fade if growth in China were to flag.

“It’s not unlike what happened with Japanese in the late ’80s or early ’90s,” says Keith Cothrun, at the College Board. “The same [growth] happened with Japanese, which is why I think American society is interested in learning Chinese.”

But Japanese has largely faded in high school curricula – in some instances being displaced by Chinese as an exotic language option.

Another important factor is the financial support from Beijing, which has stepped up the activities of the Confucius Institutes, a network of cultural diplomacy bodies tasked with increasing China’s “soft power”.

These institutes are often likened to Germany’s Goethe Institute or the Alliance Française but are more aggressive in pushing Beijing’s world view and shutting down discussion of any topics regarded as politically sensitive, such as Tibet or human rights.

“The Chinese government is supporting a lot of the Chinese teaching in the US . . . that is making a huge difference in Chinese teaching in this country,” says Nancy Rhodes, director of foreign language education at the Center for Applied Linguistics.

The class at the Providence high school in Belgium is itself ultimately paid for by Beijing, through a parternship between its local embassy and the Belgian regional government.

Mr Mertens, the headmaster, thinks his students will not get far beyond basic elements of the language, which is renowned as one of the trickiest to pick up, let alone master. As long as they also learn something about the culture, he says, it is well worth their time.

“It’s a country you have to understand nowadays,” he argues.

Posted at FT Chinese, Author: Stanley Pignal