The Washington Post has a longish article on the rise of Mandarin in US schools. The administration seems to be squarely behind this. The author has correctly identifed one of the major problems - a lack of trained teachers. The Hanban is trying to tackle this issue but they’re not in a position to train the number of teachers that is needed.
The existing teacher training programs that I know of are also wholly unsuited to the needs of the US teacher. Someone needs to step in. I beleive a market-based solution is more likely to get the job done than government policy makers. Somehow I think podcasting might help solve the teacher training problem.
Ken Carroll
I smell spinoff from the Cpod incubator.
1. Cpod for Kids: Cpod Lessons for Educators, like the LA Times Kid’s Reading Room
2. Cpod Certification: certification for teachers via podcasting, Skype, blog
3. TeacherPod.com: Lexical curriculum development and innovation center
4. Cpod Stuff.com: Re-mixes, pdfs, CDs, books, games, and cool stuff.
Lantian,
I was just kind of thinking out loud knowing that people like you would come up with some terrific ideas. One of us is a genius. Could you write a business plan while you’re at it?
Ken Carroll
Ken
I hope you have Jenny locked up in a no trade, no compete, no quit contract for the next ten years. That would have to be a key part of any business plan drawn up by Lantian.
Mike inJubei
Ken
btw : I forgot to ask where the heck is the time clock you guys use to time stamp these things ?
Mike in Jubei
In Oz, competency based training and certification are pretty big. In many fields, it doesn’t matter what qualification you’ve got, if it wasn’t competency based it’s not regarded as a clear understandable measure of your worth. And if it is, then no matter how unheard of the qualification is, anyone can check what competencies it actually does claim to have assessed, and it has meaning. There is also a process of “recognition of prior learning” which means you could have become fluent by spending time at the pub or anything, and you get the chance to demonstrate you’re equal.
It was introduced here in the early 90s (I was there) and quickly spread across industry sectors and training and education establishments. I have no idea what other countries might be fixated on competencies, or to what extent that has been applied to language learning and teaching. Anyone else seen it around? If it’s being used, it’d be a convenient bandwagon to jump onto.
I’m thinking that if it’s already in use it could be advantageous, to allow existing different certification types from different places to be used and understood. It would also highlight the kinds of important competencies that are acquired with this sort of learning, that don’t really happen when memorising 30 year old books. When considering the competencies that should be included in someone’s requirements, the importance of contemporary communication skills will be obvious. That observation, and the lack of courses that address that competency, would lead to a call for courses of that kind, and guess what, I just happen to know of one
Adding to what Mike said, I think Jenny is a brand. I won’t be surprised to find www.jennyzhu.com and www.zhuqi.com on the web in the near future. I also think John, Connie and Aggie are very critical to developing the Chinesepod curriculum. They should be locked up in the next ten years…contractually. Cpod can build a team around them and bring in complementary talent. Cpod is a very people-intensive business. I like how all of you interact with your listeners via the blog. But like any other growing company, I just can’t see how all of you would be able to stay engaged with the listeners through a wide range of forums as the business grows. Then again, the numbers will most likely show that only a small percentage of the listeners account for the high percentage (I hope it is around 20-80) of blogging traffic. It’s a growth challenge and I hope to see a successful Cpod around for a long time. You guys are on to something and should be commended for your fast and flexible responses to helping your listeners and customers develop their Mandarin language skills.
One more thing, since I am kind of a geek, I have to commend your technogeek stuff for the excellent work they do in maintaining and upgrading the Cpod website.
Yes, chinese is the new language to learn. If you want to deal suscessfully in business you should speak english, spanish and chinese
I forgot to mention, that chinese is not only the language, everybody need to know ‘guan xi’. Do you agree Ken? How did you manage when you arrived to China for the first time?
I don’t think one needs to learn chinese for business in general, nor do I think one needs to learn chinese to do buisness with China. Many, maybe even most, foreign managers in China don’t speak the language. And most foreign businesses that import goods or services from China don’t know a lick of Chinese.
BUT
I think if you want your company to be the best, to seperate itself from it’s competitors, to be able to negotiate the best terms, conditions, and prices with chinese entities, then you should learn the language. In a perverse way, the more companies fail to embrace and master chinese, the bigger the opportunities and profits are for those who do.
Ken said, “The administration seems to be squarely behind this.”
As this is my first comment on CP, I must first of all commend everyone involved for GREAT job!
I think Ken’s right about the government/administration. But on a sour note, if you think about the world situation and the U.S. role and look at the list of languages (Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Korean, Farsi) they’re pushing, I think their motivation becomes clear.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love studying Chinese. First started myself some 35 years ago, let it drop and started again 5 or 6 years ago, and just got my first (small) Chinese teaching job. But I gotta say, if we can somehow minimize the US government’s role, we’ll be a lot better off.
Lantian’s “spinoff” ideas are the way to go. Educator initiatives rather than government initiatives.
As someone who is directly impacted by the “teach your American kid Chinese” movement, I can tell you that I already use Cpod with my son - we listen to the podcasts to and from Mandarin school each day. I think Lantian’s suggestions are great, even in jest - I would LOVE a few more kid-centric podcasts, although I doubt this would go over well with the typical Cpod listener. But think about this - get ‘em young and they’ll stay with you…
FYI… www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2006/58733.htm
The article is interesting, but I wonder if it may be too little too late. As I mentioned in other discussions, years ago I was a Russian major with interest also in becoming fluent in Arabic at an American university. In the early 1990s, I found no support for studying either language among family, most of whom thought you only needed to study one book on foreign language and would be able to translate War and Peace (there was no comprehension of what that cousework entailed and little patience to find out and great hostility to even the idea), and the university program taught what ultimately turned out to be a vanity degree in the language. My college buddy/fellow major in the program left the foreign language field a long time ago in disgust because we both decided on our majors with the expectation that we would use the language in our careers, but in my third-year class the professor blythely told us that “one day you will be able to tell your grandchildren you could once read Russian”! They never had any intention of teaching us to actually use it, and when I asked one of my professors about translation, he just laughed and told me we were in the wrong program for that. A few years ago I noticed an article in that university’s paper talking about the translation certification which didn’t exist when I was there being dumped only after a few years, that no department wanted to sponsor it among the language departments and that the only department that would sponsor it was told it was improper for them to even advertise the certificate program for translation, so they cancelled the program for lack of interest.
Once I found out about the professional organization for translators, I found another hurdle to overcome that the article doesn’t address. In order to do the kind of work mentioned for government or business, you need quite a high fluency level, and I can’t say any language I’ve ever formally studied in college or high school even came close to getting me within that range. Even now that I know what it entails, I don’t kid myself in thinking it will be easy. The pedagogy definitely needs to be scrutinized a lot more than it has been at all levels of schooling, and the goals of the students need to drive the shape of the course, not merely the goals or assumptions of the professors.
There are some properly recognised translation competency exams now. My university has a one year course on the issues of translation and the requirements for translation in different situations (i.e. contracts, literature, poetry, television dubbing etc.). I think it’s a good step in the right direction to do this, even if the language skills of the students aren’t necessarily up to it.
In terms of competency, I did a full major in Chinese language (three years) and my language skills are not up to any good standard, except maybe written. But on the other hand, the French and Spanish (and European language) students are all able to work with literature by the end of second year. It’s a little frustrating. But it’s worth it to do Chinese.