Language lessons proving class apart

schools that provide Chinese courses in the United States.

According to the census report released by the American Councils for International Education in June, “explosive growth” has been seen in the number of US children choosing to learn Chinese.

After Spanish, French and German, Mandarin has become the fourth largest foreign language pursued by US students at elementary and high schools.

But this has led to the challenge of finding teachers.

StarTalk Program Director Magaly Lavadenz hoped to attract educators from the local area.

“This is a very rich and diverse city. We have lots of Chinese immigrants and Chinese heritage community members. They should think about becoming teachers, because they are second-career people who can get the credential and license to become a teacher,” Lavadenz said.

Fong was also looking further afield. “I am trying to see if we can find a sister school (in China), where we can exchange ideas, and maybe have their teachers come out and observe us. We can go and observe them, and have students work with each other and be pen-pals.”

It is estimated that in the US there is a shortfall of 5,000 to 8,000 Chinese language teachers.