Growing up, having to learn French, Spanish or German at school was a well-hated part of the school week. There was nowhere to really practice the language, no one could actually see the point of the exercise, and it was difficult. And so, over the last decade, as the public school system began giving up its belief in introducing languages into our children's lives, mostly to cut back on costs, we were unhappy of course about it, but not without a modicum of sneaking satisfaction for the child in us that still rebels at the idea. But even as that trend began a decline in our educational values, a divergent counter current is settling in as well. The government of China, in what is perhaps a very meaningful attempt to assert its presence in the world is trying a novel method of spreading sympathy around the world for what it stands for. China is arranging for thousands of Chinese language teachers from China, to go out on long-term assignments to every country in the world, to help locals in schools there to learn Chinese .
As an incentive to those countries to accept China's language extension and outreach program, the government of China undertakes to pay for the salaries of these teachers, either in whole, or in part. There are some schools in America that actually pay the salaries themselves, but hundredsare accepting China's largesse. And so, schools from Ohio to Washington, are diving in and offering the children who attend, the opportunity to learn Chinese, from a native speaker. The schools only wish other countries, France, Germany, Spain, would show this kind of interest in seeing their language accepted by millions across the world.
Only 25,000 or so of America's public schools have been offering any kind of language instruction at all. Before the Chinese bonus came on, only 1% of those schools offered the language. Now it's four times more, and set to rise fantastically. Chinese is the first Asian language to be offered on campuses around the country, ever since interest in Japanese declined in the nineties.The Advanced Placement Test has mostly been taken in German, Spanish and French so far; ever since students began to be given a chance to learn Chinese, the language is all set to overtake German among the top three choices in the test. Schools in Texas, Illinois, Colorado, schools in the heart of America, schools that children from everyday American families attend, are seeing such an interest in the chance to learn Chinese. These are not the children of Chinese immigrants that are learning the language.
News of the Chinese plan has received wide publicity. But of course, this has always been what the media have loved to do. The moment a small change like this comes about, they love to trumpet it, and discuss it to death. When this happened with Japanese 20 years ago, no one could stop talking about it then either. Everyone felt that they were taking over America. All of this could have something to do with how the country has always believed in the Roosevelt sentiment that America has room for no more than one language. There is always a quiet degree of alarm at change that arrives from foreign shores. In time, this will settle, as everything else has.