Speaking of teacherless foreign language

High schools can offer Chinese via Internet this fall

Friday, February 17, 2006 By Judy PutnamLansing Bureau

LANSING — Chinese language instruction in Michigan is such a new field that the state Department of Education only recently established an endorsement to teach the language.

So far, no teacher candidates have applied.

But with China a growing economic powerhouse and future jobs at stake, Michigan Virtual University, a nonprofit corporation providing online instruction, hopes to add Chinese to the more common high school language options of French, Spanish and German.

“A lot of young people see what they see on the news every night and have an interest in learning about China,'’ said Jamey Fitzpatrick, MVU’s president.

A pilot project that began in January is bringing Mandarin Chinese via the Internet to 30 students at 21 high schools across Michigan. The plan is to make it available to all high schools this fall.

“We wanted to test drive this course before we made it available,'’ Fitzpatrick said.

Nationally, only 24,000 students in grades seven to 12 study Chinese, which is spoken by 1.3 billion people worldwide, according to the Asia Society, an international nonprofit group promoting U.S.-Asia relations. In contrast, more than 1 million students study French, a language spoken by only 80 million people.

The Asia Society reports that it has tracked Chinese courses in only two Michigan high schools, in Detroit and Birmingham.

Fitzpatrick said the Chinese instruction fits MVU’s goal of providing classes that are difficult for schools to offer. MVU, through its Michigan Virtual High School division, provides classes in more than 400 high schools, more than half of the state’s public and private high schools.

One of those taking the Chinese course, Jessica Ernst, 18, a senior at Howell High School, said she fell in love with the country when she took a trip to China with a group from her high school two years ago.

She’s hoping to study sociology and Chinese language at the University of Michigan next year.

In her first weeks with the online course, Ernst said she’s had technical problems with the school’s computer and has had to do much of her work from home, including recording pronunciation of words. But she’s still enthused about the opportunity.

“It’s an amazing language. It sounds so cool,'’ she said.

She said she’s learning to speak a few words. She’s also studying character-based written Chinese and a phonetic Roman alphabet version called Pinyin.

Jay McDowell, a Howell High School social studies teacher who supervises Ernst’s online instruction, taught English to the Chinese in a southeastern industrial city in China for two years in the mid-1990s.

He said it’s harder for English speakers to learn Chinese than the other way around because Chinese is a tonal language, where the tone changes the meaning of the word.

The online class is taught by Melissa Li, a doctoral student from China studying at Michigan State University’s College of Education. She’s worked as an interpreter in China and an English tutor, Fitzpatrick said.

Fitzpatrick said MVU may seek teachers in China next year to teach online if the demand is high.

Dan Schultz, senior policy adviser for Michigan Virtual University, said Mandarin is the most commonly used dialect in China. “It has more business applications, and it’s more broadly understood,'’ he said.

Chinese and Arabic are two of four prominent world languages and are “almost nonexistent” in the United States, Schultz said. The other prominent languages are English and Spanish. MVU eventually hopes to add an Arabic language instruction course.

Fitzpatrick said the Chinese pilot is free to schools, but the class is expected to cost school districts $300 per student for a semester course next year.

Tom White, executive director of the Michigan School Business Officials group, has been preaching the need to connect with China since he and other education leaders toured the country last fall with MSU officials.

“We need to build positive relationships, both personal and business relationships, with China. Teaching Chinese is a huge step in that direction,'’ he said.

Mark Thomas, the principal at Northview High School, where a student interested in the global economy is taking Chinese through the pilot program, said opportunities such as Chinese language instruction have to be made available to kids.

“Obviously, Asia is becoming a driving force in our world economy, and I think for our children to become more world competitive, that’s something we have to consider.'’

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— Contact Judy Putnam at (517) 487-8888 x232 or e-mail at jputnam@boothnewspapers.com.

�2006 Booth Newspapers � 2006 Michigan Live. All Rights Reserved.

JMG, at 5:05 pm EST on February 17, 2006