New York Times Article on Growing Importance of Mandarin

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/nyregion/22chinese.html?scp=1&sq=rise%20of%20mandarin%20changes%20the%20sound%20of%20chinatown&st=cse

October 22, 2009
Rise of Mandarin Changes the Sound of Chinatown
By KIRK SEMPLE
He grew up playing in the narrow, crowded streets of Manhattan’s Chinatown. He has lived and worked there for all his 61 years. But as Wee Wong walks the neighborhood these days, he cannot understand half the Chinese conversations he hears.

Cantonese, a dialect from southern China that has dominated the Chinatowns of North America for decades, is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin, the national language of China and the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants.

The change can be heard in the neighborhood’s lively restaurants and solemn church services, in parks, street markets and language schools. It has been accelerated by Chinese-American parents, including many who speak Cantonese at home, as they press their children to learn Mandarin for the advantages it may bring as China’s influence grows in the world.

But the eclipse of Cantonese — in New York, China and around the world — has become a challenge for older people who speak only that dialect and face increasing isolation unless they learn Mandarin or English. Though Cantonese and Mandarin share nearly all the same written characters, the pronunciations are vastly different; when spoken, Mandarin may be incomprehensible to a Cantonese speaker, and vice versa.

Mr. Wong, a retired sign maker who speaks English, can still get by with his Cantonese, which remains the preferred language in his circle of friends and in Chinatown’s historic core. A bit defiantly, he said that if he enters a shop and finds the staff does not speak his dialect, “I go to another store.”

Like many others, however, he is resigned to the likelihood that Cantonese — and the people who speak it — will soon become just another facet of a polyglot neighborhood. “In 10 years,” he said, “it will be totally different.”

With Mandarin’s ascent has come a realignment of power in Chinese-American communities, where the recent immigrants are gaining economic and political clout, said Peter Kwong, a professor of Asian-American studies at Hunter College.

“The fact of the matter is that you have a whole generation switch, with very few people speaking only Cantonese,” he said. The Cantonese-speaking populace, he added, “is not the player anymore.”

The switch mirrors a sea change under way in China, where Mandarin, as the official language, is becoming the default tongue everywhere.

In North America, its rise also reflects a major shift in immigration. For much of the last century, most Chinese living in the United States and Canada traced their ancestry to a region in the Pearl River Delta that included the district of Taishan. They spoke the Taishanese dialect, which is derived from and somewhat similar to Cantonese.

Immigration reform in 1965 opened the door to a huge influx of Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong, and Cantonese became the dominant tongue. But since the 1990s, the vast majority of new Chinese immigrants have come from mainland China, especially Fujian Province, and tend to speak Mandarin along with their regional dialects.

In New York, many Mandarin speakers have flocked to Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and Flushing, Queens, which now rivals Chinatown as a center of Chinese-American business and political might, as well as culture and cuisine. In Chinatown, most of the newer immigrants have settled outside the historic core west of the Bowery, clustering instead around East Broadway.

“I can’t even order food on East Broadway,” said Jan Lee, 44, a furniture designer who has lived all his life in Chinatown and speaks Cantonese. “They don’t speak English; I don’t speak Mandarin. I’m just as lost as everyone else.”

Now Mandarin is pushing into Chinatown’s heart.

For most of the 100 years that the New York Chinese School, on Mott Street, has offered language classes, nearly all have taught Cantonese. Last year, the numbers of Cantonese and Mandarin classes were roughly equal. And this year, Mandarin classes outnumber Cantonese 3 to 1, even though most students are from homes where Cantonese is spoken, said the principal, Kin S. Wong.

Some Cantonese-speaking parents are deciding it is more important to point their children toward the future than the past — their family’s native dialect — even if that leaves them unable to communicate well with relatives in China.

“I figure if they have to acquire a language, I wanted them to have Mandarin because it makes it easier when they go into the workplace,” said Jennifer Ng, whose 5-year-old daughter studies Mandarin at the language school of the Church of the Transfiguration, a Roman Catholic parish on Mott Street where nearly half the classes are devoted to Mandarin. Her 8-year-old son takes Cantonese, but only because there is no English-speaking Mandarin teacher for his age group.

“Can I tell you the truth?” she said. “They hate it! But it’s important for the future.” Until recently, Sunday Masses at Transfiguration were said in Cantonese. The church now offers two in Mandarin and only one in Cantonese. And as the recent arrivals from mainland China become old-timers, “we are beginning to have Mandarin funerals,” said the Rev. Raymond Nobiletti, the Cantonese-speaking pastor.

At the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, which has been the unofficial government of Chinatown for generations and conducts its business in Cantonese, the president, Justin Yu, said he is the first whose mother tongue is Mandarin to lead the 126-year-old organization. Though he has been taking Cantonese lessons in order to keep up at association meetings, his pronunciation is sometimes a source of hilarity for his colleagues, he said.

“No matter what,” he added, laughing, “you have to admire my courage.”

But even his association is being surpassed in influence by Fujianese organizations, said Professor Kwong of Hunter College.

Longtime residents seem less threatened than wistful. Though he is known around Chinatown for what he calls his “legendarily bad” Cantonese, Paul Lee, 59, said it pained him that the dialect was disappearing from the place where his family has lived for more than a century.

“It may be a dying language,” he acknowledged. “I just hate to say that.”

But he pointed out that the changes were a natural part of an evolving immigrant neighborhood: Just as Cantonese sidelined Taishanese, so, too, is Mandarin replacing Cantonese.

Mr. Wong, the principal of the New York Chinese School, said he had tried to adjust to the subtle shifts during his 40 years in Chinatown. When he arrived in 1969, he walked into a coffee shop and placed his order in Cantonese. Other patrons looked at him oddly.

“They said, ‘Where you from?’ ” he recalled. “ ‘Why you speak Cantonese?’ ” They were from Taishan, he said, so he switched to Taishanese and everyone was happy.

“And now I speak Mandarin better than Cantonese,” he added with a chuckle. “So, Chinatown — it’s always changing.”

CLSC Teacher Claire Huang Featured

CLSC Teacher Claire Huang was recently featured in a Families with Children from China magazine article on girls adopted from China, learning Chinese.

If you'd like to form a private tutoring group in your area, please contact the Chinese Language School of Connecticut at info@ChineseLanguageSchool.org or visit them at www.ChineseLanguageSchool.org.

"Lucky Girl" Reading at Greenwich Library, November 8

From Mary O'Neill at ONeill@centerchem.com

"Lucky Girl" reading by author Mei Ling Hopgood at Greenwich Library November 8.

Sunday, November 8th at the Greenwich Library in Greenwich, CT ; FCC
Southern CT and FCC Westchester regions are cosponsoring a reading in
Greenwich, CT. $5 per person, preregistration required. Register
online at www.fccny.org . For more information
or to volunteer to help with this event, Mary O'Neill at
oneill@centerchem.com

CLSC Staff Invited to Harvard Chinese AP Workshop

CLSC Staff members recently returned from an October workshop on Chinese AP training, sponsored by the ACTFL and Harvard University.

This workshop was by invitation, and a grant covered the fees. For info on the program, what was covered, or how to advance your child's studies in Chinese via classes or private tutoring, please contact the Chinese Language School of Connecticut at info@ChineseLanguageSchool.org.

Pictured are CLSC Principal Daisy Chen Laone, Program Director Jopi Shen, Vice Principal Xian Xian Feng, teachers I-Hui Li, Wendy Zhou Witkowsky, and member Xian Wu, outside Harvard's Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and the famous Jan Ying library.


Photo includes Mr. Bai, Committee Chair of the workshop.

From: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/look-east-why-chinese-lessons-are-booming-1799026.html

There is also an interesting blog and comments section beneath this article, on the web site link. Seems many believe the UK is suffering from many of the same issues the U.S. is: lack of understanding why Chinese is important, lack of certified teachers.

Look East: Why Chinese lessons are booming

Where Chinese was once an exotic subject to study, today it has taken off in many schools. Hilary Wilce finds it has won the ultimate accolade – its own GCSE textbook


Thursday, 8 October 2009

The Independent, London


Two East London schoolgirls are chattering animatedly about their families, but not in English, or in their home languages of Urdu or Bengali. Instead Shajedah Kayum and Johura Hasna are gassing confidently in Mandarin Chinese.


At Kingsford Community School, in Beckton, east London, every pupil studies Mandarin when they start at age 11, and growing numbers are now choosing it at GCSE. Last year, 15 students took the subject and 66 per cent of them achieved A or A* grades. In Year Nine, about 50 students have already embarked – one year early – on Mandarin GCSE.

Kingsford is not alone. Mandarin is fast going mainstream with about 500 schools – no one knows the precise figure – offering it as part of the curriculum, and many more in after-school clubs. The first GCSE Chinese textbook has just been published by Pearson Education, in conjunction with the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, tailored to a new EdExcel exam.

The language that used to be seen as an exotic novelty is taking its place as a normal GCSE languages option.

Sceptics say that this is all just a gimmick and that classroom time could be better used to help pupils become competent in a more accessible language such as French or Spanish.

But according to school heads who offer Mandarin courses, which include language and culture, the subject opens pupils' eyes to the biggest country in the world, hones general language skills, engages boys – who relate to the visual and spatial aspects of the language – enhances students' resumes, and can be a subject in which pupils who struggle with other languages do well.

Twelve schools in Britain have now become Confucius Classrooms, receiving support from the Office of Chinese Language Council, known as Hanban, along with help from the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, itself a Confucius Institute since 2006.

This allows them to grow as specialist hubs, helping other schools to bring in Chinese studies.

Kingsford, a language college for 11- to 16-year-olds, is a Confucius Classroom and believes Mandarin has brought many benefits to its pupils. The school is a new one and only moved into its current building in 2002. The original head asked colleagues to suggest innovative cross-curricular programmes and the current head, Joan Deslandes, who was then in charge of humanities, languages and technology, suggested doing something on China.

"China had just joined the World Trade Association, I was interested in Confucius and I thought it was a language which none of our children spoke, so this would be a level playing field," she says. In a school where the pupils speak 55 languages between them, finding such a language was no easy task. Even so, some governors were initially resistant.

But Mandarin triumphed and since then the school has won a national Mandarin-speaking competition, sent students regularly to visit China, and built a close link with Brighton College, an independent school in Sussex, where Mandarin is compulsory.

Three Kingsford students a year go on scholarships to Brighton College to do their A levels. Other pupils have this year moved to other independent schools, including Cheltenham Ladies College, with their applications bolstered by their Mandarin skills.

The Mandarin programme brings many national and international visitors to the school, where they listen to pupils talk and watch them perform a tai chi-based fan dance.

The whole programme has clearly given many pupils a feeling of confidence and achievement. "I really like it and I'm glad I chose it," says Johura Hasna, who is just embarking on her GCSE and says she might want to work as a lawyer using her Chinese.

She was one student who won a trip to China "where, when you started talking people were, like, 'Wow'".

Osman Abdul-Moomin, another Year Nine pupil and who won the trip, says he was struck, in China, by how well everything was organised and how hard people worked. He is delighted he is doing the subject. "Speaking Mandarin – it's a trump card!"

The school has two permanent Mandarin teachers and is looking for a third. It also gets support from Hanban teachers who come on placement from China. Linying Liu is the school's Confucius classroom manager, who is helping to write the new Chinese textbooks. She says that she could easily find a job in an independent school, but is happy in the tougher conditions that Kingsford offers.

For the head teacher Joan Deslandes, the programme is just one aspect of an education of high expectations. Mandarin is in the top three languages that employers say they want, she says.

"But any school that wants to do it will have to have the full backing of the school leadership, and will need to make an investment in curriculum time. And it will have to recognise there are no quick wins here. It will not necessarily make your exam results look good." Even so, Kingsford students, despite coming from disadvantaged backgrounds, far exceed the national GCSE average.

Mandarin has now reached take-off point in British schools with the publication of the new textbook, according to Katharine Carruthers, the director for the SSAT Confucius Institute. "For the first time it is going to look like any other GCSE," she says. "Before it could be seen as something exotic and heads could get away with a bit of teaching after school, but now it's going viral and heads are starting to think, 'I'd better take a look at this because it's obviously changed.'" Textbooks for Key Stages 3 and 2 are also in the pipeline.

According to Andrew Hall, the head of Calday Grange Grammar School, in West Kirby, the home of another Confucius Classroom, the language "has gone from novelty to mainstream" in 10 years. His school works with five other secondary schools as well as with primaries and nurseries. "The students enjoy it and parents are very supportive," he says. "There's a great and growing awareness of China."

But just how proficient are students who have gained GCSE Chinese? In speaking and listening they are not far off the level they would be in, say, French, says Katherine Carruthers. Their reading and writing, however, takes longer, which means the passages that are set for them are shorter and easier. "But there is every sign that the subject is engaging children," she says. "They love learning about the culture and it is very motivating."

Chinese Winter Workshops!

Why not explore Chinese culture during winter recess at a class run by the Chinese Language School of Connecticut?

YMCA Winter Break WorkshopsDates: February 16, 17, & 18 (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday)
Time: 10:30-12:30 for K-2
1:30-3:30 for G3-6
Location: Greenwich Family YMCA
Fee: $50 per class. Supplies and Material included.

Please visit www.ChineseLanguageSchool.org and click on How to Register on the left hand nav bar for registration form, thank you!


February 16: Chinese Calligraphy and Ink Painting
Introduction of Chinese four treasures, teach basic Calligraphy techniques and make ink painting about bamboo and flowers.

Deadline to Registration must be postmarked by February 10 in order to register.



February 17: Paper Folding & Origami projects for kids
Origami is a fascinating and creative craft for kids. All children enjoy creating various objects out of paper. Not only will children get a real sense of satisfaction out of making these fun origami models, but they will be getting practice at following instructions, increasing their manual dexterity, and producing a fun and decorative end-product.

Deadline to Registration must be postmarked by February 10 in order to register.



February 18: Children and Pet puppets
Decorate oversized puppet characters from Chinese Miao fairytale: “The peacock’s Tail”

Deadline to Registration must be postmarked by February 10 in order to register.