Chinese valued
Conference points out value of language to career prospects
Conference looks at central role of the language in future
The importance of learning Chinese was celebrated at the opening of the 11th annual National Chinese Language Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, the largest gathering of Chinese language education practitioners in North America.
The 1,300 officials, educators and Chinese language experts who attended the reception and banquet for the three-day event on Thursday heard from a number of speakers, including Utah Governor Gary Herbert, Utah Senator Howard A. Stephenson and John Holden, the CEO of US-China Strong Foundation, and were entertained with a Sichuan face-change performance by local students.
This year’s meeting was centered on the theme “From Classroom to Careers”, showing how a strong foundation in the Chinese language can translate into academic and professional success. The event, which ran through Saturday, is co-sponsored by the College Board, Asia Society and the Confucius Institute Headquarters.
During the conference, participants broke into groups led by speakers from all over the world to share new ideas and best practices in the fields of Chinese language teaching and learning, Chinese arts and culture, and US–China educational exchanges.
In his opening remarks on Thursday, Herbert said Utah has more than 130 official business languages, but Chinese is more important than the other languages. Due to the close trade relationship between Utah and China, over 20 percent of US students who are learning Chinese live in Utah, he said.
Stephenson, who is also the State National Education Coordinator, said that it is necessary for US students to be bilingual “in order to compete and cooperate with China”.
“Never in the history of the US has it been more important to communicate clearly with China,” said Stephenson. “At this time we should be making every effort to increase access to Chinese language learning for all US students.”
Zhao Guocheng, deputy
Never in the history of the US has it been more important to communicate clearly with China.”
Howard A. Stephenson, Utah Senator
chief executive of the Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban) and executive deputy director-general of Hanban, said Utah is a leading state in English-Chinese language immersion, with more than 10,000 students now taking part in the program.
“Chinese language teaching has gained great momentum from the increasing demand across the US during the past decade,” he said. “My colleagues and I are so happy and proud to be able to work together with communities across the US to increase access to learning Chinese language and culture.”
He emphasized the need for the next generation of students to maintain communication with each other in an era of economic globalization and culture pluralism.
John Holden, the CEO of US-China Strong Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit that provides US youth with the tools to enter a China-related career, said his organization is hosting a China Careers Summit in the nation’s capital in two weeks.
“It’s nice to learn a foreign language, but if it’s not useful, there’s no return on investment, and I think it can be intellectually satisfying to know French, German, or Italian, or Japanese, or Chinese,” said Holden, who also spoke at the opening ceremony, “but, if you are not using it, there is no pay back, so helping young people get jobs that use their Chinese is very important.”