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    FancyEnglish    Signing Up To Learn Chinese    课件首页

       August 13, 2008

　

Students are signing up to learn Mandarin Chinese August 13th, 2008 @ 3:54pm By Amanda Butterfield During the 2008 summer Olympics from Beijing, China, athletes and visitors are exposed to a very different language: Chinese. More and more schools in Utah are offering Mandarin Chinese to their students. Kaysville Junior High is the first grade school in the state to offer it. Mandarin Chinese really isn't that hard to learn and speak, at least not that hard for these Kaysville Junior High students. Nick Casey says, "It was hard at first, but after a while you get used to it. It gets easier and not that hard anymore." Student Alexa Ford agrees. She says, "You have to get used to tones." James Ostler is the Chinese Language instructor at the school, and he says it was the first Chinese language program offered in Utah about seven years ago. But now several other schools and districts offer it, and students are signing up. Provo School District plans to start a Chinese Immersion Program at Wasatch Elementary School in 2009. It will be the first in the state. Students will learn subjects in Chinese, starting as young as kindergarten until the sixth grade. The students who signed up at Kaysville Junior High hope it will give them a jump start on their future careers. Casey explains, "There's a lot of great business opportunities now, and by learning Chinese, you can work with Chinese people, and it's a great way to make money." Student William Sales says the reason he took Chinese is "because I have seen that people are coming from China here to the USA." So how you begin learning this very foreign language? Ostler says, "What the students need to learn in order to begin tackling the language is the characters with a Romanization system." Once the students get the hang of basic characters, they've got to get a hang of the four tones. Depending on the tone used, the word can take on a very different meaning. Learning to write the characters can be a challenge too. "You have to do it over and over again until you get it, says student Olivia Snarr. She says, "It can be relaxing, if you are bored, something to do." Ostler says these students will have an edge getting accepted to colleges with Mandarin classes on their resume. The students we talked with, plan to keep taking the class until then. Casey says, "I'm doing it next year too, Chinese 2, and I think I'll continue on." This coming school year, Davis School District will host native Chinese teachers to come and teach the language. Ostler also teaches night classes to adults and says with the Beijing games, he's had a lot more interested students.

   

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