Congress-targets-Chinese-language-education

http://www.examiner.com/x-15615-Asia-Headlines-Examiner%7Ey2009m7d15-Congress-targets-Chinese-language-education

Congress targets Chinese language education

WASHINGTON - A bill pending in Congress would dramatically expand Mandarin Chinese language classes for American students. The measure, the U.S.-China Language Engagement Act, would award competitive grants to schools to “establish, expand or improve” Chinese language and cultural classes. It also expands technology options to help American schools establish “virtual connections” with schools in China.

U.S. Rep. Susan Davis, D-Calif., who authored the legislation, said the measure can increase the competitiveness of American workers.

“While an estimated 200 million Chinese school children are studying our language and culture, less than 50,000 American elementary and secondary students are studying Chinese,” Davis said. “This bill is part of a broader legislative package seeking to improve our competitive edge and relationship with China.”

School districts around the country are increasingly adding Mandarin language courses to their curriculum, but a lack of funding and qualified teachers often makes program implementation difficult. Linguists are divided as to whether studying foreign languages at an earlier age is essential for fluency in the target language. The so-called “critical learning period” has been challenged by more provocative research which demonstrates the “plasticity” of the human brain in people of all ages and backgrounds.

Mandarin Chinese, called “Putonghua,” is widely considered one of the most difficult languages for native English speakers to master. It is classified by the Defense Language Institute as a “category four” (out of four) language in regards to difficulty of mastery by native English speakers. On the Foreign Service Institute language difficulty scale, Mandarin is rated as a “category three” language (out of three), due to the exceptional difficulty it poses for English speakers to learn.

National security experts have said that the U.S. has a shortage of qualified “critical language” speakers – specifically Mandarin and Arabic. Both the CIA and FBI regularly advertise positions with their agencies for Americans who possess some Chinese ability. In May, CIA Director Leon Panetta announced that he was boosting the agency’s foreign language training programs. The 9/11 Commission Report criticized the weak foreign language capabilities of the government’s national security agencies.

On the campaign trail, then-candidate Barack Obama stressed that foreign language instruction should be expanded in American schools. “I don’t speak a foreign language. It’s embarrassing,” he said. “It’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is merci beaucoup, right?”

A number of current Washington officials studied Mandarin as college students. Democratic New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand studied the language for six months in Mainland China and Taiwan. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner spent two summers learning the language at Beijing’s Peking University, called “BeiDa” in Chinese.

The bipartisan bill, H.R. 2313, is cosponsored by U.S. Reps. Charles Boustany, R-La.; Gerry Connolly, D-Va.; Mike Honda, D-Calif.; Steve Israel, D-N.Y.; Mark Kirk, R-Ill.; Rick Larsen, D-Wa.; and Erik Paulsen, R-Minn.

The legislation is currently awaiting further action in the House Committee on Education and Labor.