Teaching Chinese is Essential in American Schools
Roberto Soto
University/College Professor
Box 147 City Island
New York City, New York
USA
212 300 7492
Online
searches turn up about 100 American colleges and universities, where students
can pursue an undergraduate major in Chinese. This is compared to over 1000 for
Spanish, more than 800 for French and over 500 for German, While Chinese
language education at the middle school and high school levels has shown some
growth over the past decade (particularly in areas with large concentrations of
Chinese American students = the availability of Chinese classes throughout the
US school system is insignificant, when compared to major European languages.
Figures reveal that about 25,000 7th -12th grade students across the country
study Chinese. This is the language spoken by 1.3 billion people worldwide –
versus more than a million students at the same grade level who study French, a
language spoken by 80 million people world wide.