New scholarship helps teachers take Mandarin to the world
- Source: Global Times
- [03:20 November 11 2009]
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By Ji Beibei
As more students devote themselves to studying and teaching Chinese globally, Canadian actor/comedian "Dashan" won't be the only one shaking his Chinese language moneymaker in the Middle Kingdom and abroad.
At a ceremony held at Beijing Foreign Studies University Tuesday, 1,021 students from over 50 countries including the US, Germany, Ukraine and Malaysia were honored as the first class of foreign students to be awarded a full scholarship for a new Chinese language education program.
Launched by the Confucius Institute, the program will sponsor these young students to spend two years at 50 distinguished universities across the country studying, getting hands-on teaching experience in China and then returning to their own countries to teach Mandarin.
The program is set to award new students with the scholarship every year until 2013.
Some students feel that studying with a teacher from their own country makes language learning easier.
"I am not used to the Chinese way of teaching and I think someone from my own country could teach me better," said Tom Hancock from Britain, who did not participate in the program, but studying Mandarin in Beijing.
Other students participating in the program plan to use the language as a tool for further research.
"Many Buddhist scriptures are in Chinese. We want to enhance our understanding of Buddhism by studying the language," said Pan Shixiang, a Buddhism studies student from Vietnam in explaining why she applied to the program.
Chinese senior officials, such as the newly assigned Education Minister Yuan Guiren, Vice Minister Hao Ping and ambassadors representing 25 countries also attended the ceremony.
Hervé Ladsous, the French Ambassador to China, addressed the audience in both Mandarin and French, saying "Chinese is the language of the future."
