Chinese as a Foreign Language in Europe

33

The Modern Language Association of America (MLA) conducts regular surveys of language enrollment at universities in the US. The most recent survey, taken in 2009, shows Mandarin catching up to Japanese and positively dwarfing its regional counterparts. See Chart 3 for the status of Asian languages being studied in American universities.

Chart 3. Asian languages Americans are Studying at University. (Source: People in the West Can Stop Obsessing about Learning Chinese)

34

the first foreigners to teach Chinese (Laven, 2011). Chinese civilization began to influence the world in the 15th century due to China’s supremacy in philosophy, art, silk making, printing and other fields when Europe was well into the Renaissance.

In the United Kingdom, a new Confucius Institute was set up in 2015 with the express goal of “increasing the UK’s supply of qualified Mandarin teachers to 1,200 by 2019” (“Confucius Institutes Expanding,” 2014). The British Education Minister, at the time of writing, Elizabeth Truss pointed out that “China’s growing economy brings huge business opportunities for Britain, and it is vital that more of our young people can speak Mandarin to be able to trade in a global market and to develop successful companies”(BBC Report, 2014). However, John Worne, director of strategy at the British Council has noted sluggish growth in the number of students learning Chinese, al language he regards as “one of the most important languages for the UK’s future on the world’s stage, according to our own British Council research.” (CCTV English Channel Interview, 2014).

As at October 2015, the UK now has 29 Confucius Institutes and 126 Confucius Classrooms at universities in Manchester, Cardiff, Lampeter, Nottingham, Sheffield, Edinburgh and London, more than any other country in Europe, and stands second only to the United States as a host country (China Daily, 2015). Brighton College, an independent school in East Sussex, is the first school to make Chinese compulsory, alongside French, Spanish and Latin in 2006. The rapid expansion of the Confucius Institutes in the UK is playing a significant role in language learning and in promoting cultural understanding between China and the West. Professor Lutz Marten (2015), director of the London Confucius Institute, used Chinese President Xi’s UK visit to emphasis that the more people learn Chinese language and culture, the better understanding they would have to improve relations between UK and China (CCTV

35

English Channel Interview, 2015). Even Prince Andrew used the Confucius Institute Conference to express his support for the development of Confucius Institutes and Classrooms to encourage more UK children to learn Chinese. (Andrew, 2014).

Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency shows that more than 1,500 students took Chinese or Mandarin at undergraduate or postgraduate level in 2011, making it the least popular major language apart from Japanese. Since then, the British government has laid out plans to support Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) in schools. A British Council survey (2016) of secondary schools in the UK shows an increasing interest in Chinese instruction. The numbers are still small for classes taken as part of the UK’s national curriculum, but Mandarin is second after Italian on the list of extra languages schools offer (“Languages for the Future,” 2016) as confirmed by a British Council report released in 2014. See Chart 4 for the details.

Chart 4. Languages Offered Outside Normal Curriculum in the UK. (Source: Board K, Tinsley T. Language Trends 2013/14)

The high trend of Mandarin study in the UK shown in Chart 5 coincides with an initiative from the British government to give the language more importance in the British education system. Following a visit to China, the UK Prime Minister David

36

Cameron (2013) encouraged students to start studying Chinese, a language he saw as key to future success, stressing that it was time for British schools to shift the focus away from traditional European languages to Chinese (Financial Times, 2013). To facilitate growth in Chinese language teaching in UK, 60 head teachers were sent on study trips China in 2013, and the UK government will continue providing subsidies for schools to train language teachers.

Now around 600 primary and middle schools in the UK offer Mandarin classes, and it was hoped to boost the number of young British Chinese-speakers to 400,000 by the end of 2016 (Wu & Liu, 2015). The target echoes a proposal put forward by members of the Scottish Parliament in June 2014 to double the number of school students in Scotland gaining qualifications in Chinese by 2017 (Tinsley & Board, 2014).

According to a recent poll, there are 4,200 UK students studying Chinese in China, and 9% of secondary schools offer Chinese lessons, with 2,541 students taking a GCSE in Mandarin in 2012.

In Germany most of the current experts began learning Mandarin at universities in their late teens or early twenties. In the 2010/2011 academic year, more than 232 schools in Germany were offering Chinese courses (Laimböck, 2012). Data from the German professional association for Chinese, shows approximately 10,000 students learning Mandarin in Germany in 2014 (Niu, 2016). Apart from this, there are 15 established Confucius Institutes across Germany. The German government has also founded scholarship programs, which support students for one or two semesters or an internship abroad in China (Hanban, 2015).

Guder (2015), President of the Chinese Teaching Association of Germany, considers that now is the best time to introduce a Chinese Major to high schools in Germany. In a report for the teachers and students from the School of Chinese as a

37

Second Language, he explains that the interest in Chinese is not only because China is increasingly important in international economics and politics, but also because German high school students are curious about cultures outside Europe. Alongside language courses, Chinese food, art, fengshui, acupuncture, traditional medicine, music and martial arts are also enjoying increasing popularity in Germany (Niu, 2016).

Similarly, Chinese language education has developed rapidly in France in recent years. According to officials from the French Ministry of Education, learning Chinese as a foreign language has become a national phenomenon in France.The ministry has designated sinologist Joel Bellassen as the General Inspector of National Education for Chinese Language in order to further promote the development of Chinese language education in France (Lin, 2012). According to Bellassen (2012), nearly 30,000 middle school students in France were studying Chinese by 2012. Furthermore, 16,000 college students and 2,000 pupils across France were also learning Chinese, and the number of HSK takers in 2011 were 22 times higher than in the 1990s. Bellassen (2012) sees the desire to learn Chinese as representing the economic strength of the Chinese-speaking world, the rise of China’s international status, and the charm of the language and culture.

In addition, the French daily newspaper Libération (2012) claimed that China's economic vitality was encouraging the French people to learn Chinese (“Learning Chinese Becomes Popular,” 2012, para. 10). Greater proficiency in Chinese obviously become a socially recognized skill for young jobseekers in France. Most business schools in France now offer Chinese language courses, some are compulsory. In a survey of high schools in France, Sarikas (2015) suggested that Chinese should be taken as one of the most important foreign languages in colleges in addition to English and Spanish (cited in “Which FL Should Be Taken,” 2015, para. 15).

38

According to a survey made by the University of Comillas in Spain, Chinese language courses will extend throughout Spain as the second language of choice over the next ten years (Humanities and Social Sciences, 2016). As at 2016, there are six Confucius Institutes in Spain, a network of non-profit public institutions affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Education (Hanban-Madrid, 2016). In addition, universities such as Salamanca, Zaragoza, Santiago de Compostela are applying for the Confucius Institute to promote Chinese language and culture studies and to meet the demand for Mandarin language courses and qualified teachers. An official Spanish report "Europe and China", showed that in 2013 more than 7100 Spanish learners of Chinese had taken the HSK¹³ exams, maintaining the highest level of exam takers in Europe for three consecutive years from 2011. In 2015, in Madrid alone, more than 8600 Spanish learners of Chinese attempted the HSK exams, a 14% increase on 2014 (Hanban-Madrid, 2016). In the universities, the scope of teaching Chinese culture is extended from a simple description of the language to offering professional translation and grant degrees. For example, the Autonomous University of Barcelona is offering official masters courses in “East Asian Studies” and “Chinese and Western professional translation”; the University of Alcalá also offers a masters degree in cross-cultural communication, Chinese-Spanish interpretation and translation. Up to now, there are more than 40 universities, 150 secondary schools, and 100 Chinese language schools offering Chinese language courses in Spain. In 2011 the Spanish Education Culture and Sports Division and regional schools, jointly formed the "Spanish Foreign Language Teacher Assistants" project, including Chinese. TCFL teachers were appointed directly

13 The language families are listed according to (汉语水平考试), translated as the Chinese Proficiency Test or the Chinese Standard Exam, China's only standardized test of Standard Chinese language proficiency for non-native speakers such as foreign students and overseas Chinese.

39

from the headquarters of Hanban’s¹⁴ office to the primary and secondary schools for each region of Spain. Experts estimate that the total number of learners of Chinese will have exceeded 40,000 in Spain in 2016 (Qu, 2016).