More Young Americans Take Chinese Language Challenge

POTOMAC, Maryland (Reuters) - Studying geometry can be taxing for a 10-year-old. But Dr. Zhang’s class of young American students are not merely learning all the angles, they are doing it in Chinese.

Maryland’s Potomac Elementary School, in a prosperous suburb north of Washington, D.C., is one of a growing number of U.S. schools that teach Chinese — a hot language thanks to China’s surging economy and growing world clout.

At Potomac Elementary, children as young as 6 are honing their Chinese, motivated by a mix of parental prodding and their own desire to do something different.

"It’s pretty amazing, especially the first few months at school, when you walk into a kindergarten classroom, and the children are understanding what the teacher is saying and it’s all in Chinese," said Linda Goldberg, the school’s principal.

"Half of the time the kids aren’t even aware that the teacher is speaking a different language. They just fall right into it," said Holly Hand, whose daughter Chloe is in Zhang’s immersion class.

The United States has declared 2005 the "year of languages" although few Americans are aware of the designation. According to a 2002 Modern Language Association survey, more college students are studying foreign languages than ever before. Enrollment in Chinese rose 20 percent over 1998.

The 1.4 million students learning 15 leading languages represented a 17 percent increase over 1998. But only 9.3 percent of Americans are able to speak both their native language and a second tongue, compared to 52.7 percent of Europeans, according to the Census Bureau.

At first glance, weighty national priorities take a back seat to the fun of cultural exchange at Potomac Elementary.

Hallways are festooned with Chinese art and learning aids, such as stuffed animals labeled with Chinese names. Children sing Chinese folk songs and U.S. nursery rhymes in Chinese.

CRITICAL LANGUAGE

But in Zhang Zhian’s fifth-grade immersion class, songs and games come only after a rigorous vocabulary drill and lessons on triangles and trapezoids — all taught in Chinese.

"My students are good at listening and do pretty well at reading, but writing is a weak point," said Zhang, who has a Ph.D. in education and was a teacher in his native Beijing.

Ian Alers said mastering Chinese characters was tough.

"Writing’s pretty hard because you have to do the strokes in the right order," said the fifth-grader.

Chloe Hand, 10, says Chinese is "cool" and that she is starting to catch on to the complex writing system of characters that contain elements of meaning and sound.

"It’s a totally different language. There’s nothing to refer to," she said. "I can write Coca-Cola in Chinese and it has a lot of little boxes that refer to a mouth."

Dreams of selling Coca-Cola and other U.S. products to China have helped drive interest in Chinese studies. According to the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, 640 U.S. colleges offer Chinese programs, while 102 schools from kindergarten to 12th grade teach Chinese.

Teaching Chinese is also of keen interest to the U.S. government, which launched the National Security Education Program (NSEP) in 1994 to fund university studies of languages of key world regions, including East Asia and the Middle East.

The NSEP in 2002 inaugurated the National Flagship Language Initiative, a pilot program in Arabic, Chinese, Korean and Russian — languages deemed critical to U.S. security.

GREAT LEAP FOR AMERICA

At the London School, a private boys school in nearby Bethesda, Maryland, 17-year-old Quentin West said he started Chinese six years ago because "I thought it would be pretty fun."

But as he contemplates college, the Clinton, Maryland native recognizes good opportunities in China.

"China’s expanding, and now they need services and what not, and I guess lawyers and businessmen," West said.

Parents of Potomac students, some of whom are taking Chinese night classes to keep up with their children, say they are loathe to plan careers for 10 year olds.

"Even if my child doesn’t use her Chinese going forward, she’s learned so much about another culture," said Hand. Learning Chinese helps kids by "making their synapses jump in a different way than if they just learn their ABCs," she said.

Allison Rosenstock, 10, said she wants to follow her father and "start my own business and have an office in China."

Landon student John Skolnik, 17, said his studies would bring national gain as well as personal achievement.

"When a lot of kids like us grow up and hopefully are able to speak Chinese, and get jobs with businesses who are trading and doing business with China, it will be a big leap for a country like the United States," he said.