Beginning next year, high school students will have the
opportunity to do something they never have been able to do before
““ take an Advanced Placement course in Chinese.
The introduction comes as a response to China’s
increasingly important role in the global economy, a growing
interest in the study of Chinese in the United States, and China
and Taiwan’s push to increase the study of the language
abroad.
The course, which will teach Mandarin Chinese and Chinese
culture, will be offered “in part because there is the
recognition that of the many languages that are important in the
21st century, Chinese is one of the most important ones,”
said Scott McGinnis, an academic adviser for the Defense Language
Institute, Washington office. He is also a member of the task force
that set up the framework for the development of the AP Chinese
Language and Culture course and exam.
“(Today), China is important on all sorts of levels. For
international cooperation, China is absolutely essential,” he
said, specifically citing national security issues and economic
relations.
The AP Chinese course, along with new AP language and culture
courses in Italian, Japanese and Russian, is part of an effort to
expand the study of foreign languages in the United States. Less
than one percent of American high school students study certain
foreign languages deemed critical to national security by the U.S.
government, including Arabic, Chinese, Persian, Japanese, Korean
and Russian, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
The new courses come at the same time as the U.S.
government’s new American Competitiveness Initiative, which
encourages the study of foreign languages deemed critical to
national security.
From the American perspective, it is all part of a larger push
for the United States to remain competitive and at the same time be
able to work with key players in today’s global market,
McGinnis said.
“This is part of a growing recognition that, to be
economically competitive, to be cooperative, and to coexist, it is
very useful to know the language of the people we are competing
with,” he said.
Jennifer Topiel, a spokesperson for College Board, the creator
of the AP program, said though the United States is “very in
favor of Chinese language instruction in the United States,”
the government did not provide funding for the development of the
new courses.
Instead, half the cost of the development of the AP Chinese
course was funded by China’s National Office for Teaching
Chinese as a Foreign Language, with the rest funded by private
foundations and the government of Taiwan, said Tom Matts, director
of the World Languages Initiative for College Board.
The governments of China and Taiwan invested in the AP Chinese
program because they believe they can benefit from students
learning Chinese in foreign countries, McGinnis said.
“(For both governments), it’s a question of
competitiveness from an economic perspective. It’s good for
them to have people who can speak their language in the United
States and around the world for purposes of trade and
interactions,” he said.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, more than 200
million children in China study English, while only 24,000
kindergarten to 12th grade students in the United States study
Chinese.
Topiel cited this discrepancy as a reason for the College
Board’s decision to create an AP Chinese language and culture
course.
“In other cultures … students are often forced to take
English as a second language. In the United States, students
usually don’t start studying a foreign language until high
school or middle school, while students in other countries start in
elementary school,” she said. “These courses are a way
for American students to get in touch with and understand other
cultures.”
David Schaberg, a UCLA professor and co-director of UCLA’s
Center for Chinese Studies, said he thinks the implementation of
the AP Chinese course next fall will bring “even more
qualified undergraduates to campus … who will be able to do
Chinese at a higher level than in the past.”
He cited Chinese immigration as another reason for the interest
in the study of the Chinese language, as many students already have
a background and interest in the language and culture.
“(Many children of Chinese immigrants) learn Chinese as a
second language and are pretty well-positioned to do well in
courses in Chinese,” he said.
Two written forms of Mandarin Chinese exist today ““ the
traditional form and the simplified version.
The simplified version consists of characters with fewer strokes
and is easier to remember, Schaberg said. It was created after the
1949 revolution that brought the Communist Party to power in
mainland China, in an effort to increase literacy throughout the
country.
The AP Chinese course will allow individual teachers to choose
which form of the Chinese language they teach. Students will be
able to use either traditional or simplified characters on the
final AP exam that will follow the course.