首页
登录
职称英语
Which three foreign languages are traditionally taught in the USA? [br] The lect
Which three foreign languages are traditionally taught in the USA? [br] The lect
游客
2025-02-14
10
管理
问题
Which three foreign languages are traditionally taught in the USA? [br] The lecturer says that children take more interest in learning if ______ do.
Lecturer: More and more American parents are becoming interested in having their children learn Chinese. This is not only a case of having their children attend private classes or of schools teaching the language instead of, or in addition to, the West European languages that are traditionally studied in the States, like Spanish, French and German. Oh, no. Studying geometry can be taxing for any 10-year-old, but at a select number of American schools, children are not only learning about angles, they are doing it in Chinese. This select number of schools is growing, since Chinese is a hot language thanks to China’s surging economy and growing world clout. Even children as young as 6 are honing their Chinese at school, motivated by a mix of parental prodding and their own desire to do something different. I went to see one of these schools and it really is amazing when you walk into a kindergarten classroom, and the children are ’understanding what the teacher is saying and it’s all in Chinese. Half of the time the kids aren’t even aware that the teacher is speaking a different language. They just fall right into it.
The United States has declared this year to be the "Year of Languages", although few Americans are aware of the designation. According to a survey by the Language Association, more college students are studying foreign languages than ever before. Enrolment in Chinese has risen by 20 percent over the past 3 years. The 1.4 million students learning 15 leading languages represents a 17 percent increase over the same period. However, only 9.3 percent of Americans are able to speak 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 labelled with Chinese names. Children sing Chinese folk songs and American nursery rhymes in Chinese. In the fifth-grade immersion class, songs and games come only after a rigorous vocabulary drill and lessons on triangles and trapezoids-- all taught in Chinese. The students are good at listening and do pretty well at reading, but writing is their weak point, according to the class teacher, who has a Ph.D. in education and was a teacher in his native Beijing.
I asked two of the children--a boy and a girl--about their experiences of learning Chinese. The boy said that mastering Chinese characters was tough. When I asked why, he said that he finds the writing particularly hard because you have to do the strokes in the right order. The girl said that learning 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. She pointed out that it is quite different to English because there’s nothing like letters to refer to. However, she noted that she can remember how to write Coca-Cola in Chinese because it has a lot of little boxes that refer to a mouth. This visual aspect of Chinese characters and how it influences children when they are learning the language is a theme I’ll return to later.
Even though it is clearly the parents who are pushing for more Chinese classes, my research revealed that they are not usually pushing their children too hard, which I think is a good thing. Parents of the kids say they are loathe to plan careers for 10 year olds. To quote one of them, "Even if my child doesn’t use her Chinese going forward, she’s learned so much about another culture." Some of the parents are encouraging their children--directly or indirectly--by taking night classes in Chinese. This has been proven to be a great motivator. If children see their parents learning something, they will usually take an interest in learning it too--or at least take a greater interest in learning generally.
Dreams of selling Coca-Cola and other American products to China have helped drive the. interest in Chinese studies. According to the Language Association, 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 Education Program in 1994 to fund university studies of languages of key world regions, including East Asia and the Middle East. In 2002, the NEP announced that it was placing particular emphasis on programmes to teach Arabic, Chinese, Korean and Russian.
I spoke to some students who had just started learning Chinese here at this university. All of them had learnt Chinese since the age of 11 and some had started even earlier. Student A said he had started learning Chinese eight years ago because he thought it would be pretty fun. However, as he began contemplating college, he recognised that there were good opportunities for employment in China upon graduation. As he said, China is expanding fast and now they need services, including lawyers and businesspeople. Student B said that she wants to follow her father and start her own business and have an office in China. Student C said that he thought his studies would bring national gain as well as personal achievement. To quote him, "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 our country."
选项
答案
(their) parents
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3956637.html
相关试题推荐
WhichthreeforeignlanguagesaretraditionallytaughtintheUSA?[br]Theyare
WhichthreeforeignlanguagesaretraditionallytaughtintheUSA?[br]Thelect
WhichthreeforeignlanguagesaretraditionallytaughtintheUSA?[br]______ar
WhichthreeforeignlanguagesaretraditionallytaughtintheUSA?[br]Whatper
WhichthreeforeignlanguagesaretraditionallytaughtintheUSA?[br]Howold
RegistrationofforeignnationalsatthehealthcentrestandardproceduresRegis
RegistrationofforeignnationalsatthehealthcentrestandardproceduresRegis
RegistrationofforeignnationalsatthehealthcentrestandardproceduresRegis
Scientistshavetraditionally(classified)plantsby(groupingthem)accordingt
TheCrowBlackfoot,andSiouxtribes(traditionally)adorned(they)dwellingsan
随机试题
Completethetablebelow.ChooseNOMORETHANTWOWORDSfromReadingPassage3f
Ofthemanyfactorsthatcontributetopoorperformanceonstandardizedtest
HandGesturesinDifferentCultures1.ThumbsupAmericaandEurope:a【T1】__
简单算术表达式的结构可以用下面的上下文无关文法进行描述(E为开始符号),( )
著作权中的人身权不包括()。A.改编权 B.发表权 C.保护作品完整权
下列关于我国国家审计报告的表述,正确的有()。A.包括审计评价意见 B.
下列有关召集村民会议的说法正确的是()。A.村委会主任召开 B.应当提前
朱砂安神丸中配伍黄连的意义是A.泻火解毒 B.清热燥湿 C.清泻胃火 D.
根据下列统计资料回答125-129题 据统计,2012年1—10月我国农产品进
如果注册会计师与治理层之间的双向沟通不充分,并且这种情况得不到解决,下列有关注册
最新回复
(
0
)