Beginners Guide to Learning Chinese

For many years now, the world has been insisting

that everyone should speak English. But across the

world, countries have provided their young with

initiatives to learn other languages also. Yet in

recent months, Americans have now come to realize

that there is now a need for people to able to

speak languages that are more specialized.

Certainly the fact is that one language which many

schools are now considering including within their

curriculum’s, not just in the USA, but around the

world is Chinese.

Presently, 1.3 billion people speak Chinese around

the world, and of this, 885 million speak Mandarin

(the official language of China), which also

happens to be the most dominant dialect. Currently

in the USA, only 24,000 students (Grades 7 through

to 12) are actually studying this language, but

their numbers are steadily growing.

However, the biggest problem that many educators in

the US are facing when it comes to expanding their

Chinese programs, is finding people who are

actually qualified to teach it. There are only a

few Universities in the USA which offer programs to

allow people to train and gain their teacher’s

certification in teaching the Chinese language.

One University (George Mason) included a program

which would allow people to gain their teacher’s

certificate for teaching Mandarin, and a total of 2

people enrolled on the course.