Chinese should be taught in schools: education minister

[joeblow]

Chinese should be taught in schools: education minister

http://www.thelocal.se/22714/20091017/



A review of language learning in schools is required to meet the demands of the global market climate says Sweden's education minister Jan Björklund who is advocating Chinese lessons for college students.

    * Sweden set for stricter teacher credentials (24 Sep 09)
    * Government reported for English email use (29 Jul 09)
    * Swedish becomes official 'main language' (1 Jul 09)

Liberal Party leader Björklund adds that children in Sweden should start learning English at a earlier age, in the first grade rather than the third or fourth grade as it is today.

Speaking to Sveriges Radio news, he proposes a language learning reform to be introduced in the next election period and points towards bringing Chinese into the classroom.

"Economic relations with this huge country are going to become more and more important," he said. "I think it would be advantageous if we have a number of young people who learned Chinese."

A lack of Chinese teachers means it could take up to 15 years before the language is as widespread as French, German and Spanish in the education system.

The proposal has yet to be approved by parties in the coalition government but Björklund does not foresee any opposition on the matter.

TT/The Local (mailto:news@thelocal.se">news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)

Your comments about this article:
#1
11:06 October 17, 2009 by Ayesha07
Excellent idea to take up Chinesee in the schools. I think that English should be introduced in the Kindergartens (swedish Dagis)more "for fun", not proper teaching with books. By listening to english songs, loud reading of english kids books, watching video with some english kids program. Learning few daily sentences and small words and counting. I feel that kids as they are young, don´t think

in terms "learning", but the languages just enter in their minds in a natural way. I feel that the more languages you know, the better it is both ín your working life as for private traveling. You get more out of your traveling if you can communicate with the people in their own language. Myself love languages and have picked up some 10 languages up to now. Still wish to learn Chinese and Japanese. And to learn more Arabic. And why not refresh my Turkish and more than my now 80 words of Thai.
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#2
11:32 October 17, 2009 by kerry777
A lack of chinese teachers is not a problem if the government really want to support this proposal.China is developing fast if you can not catch their steps as soon as possible, sweden will be behide other EU countries. In china, there are hundred thousands graduated students whose major are teaching Chinese laguage to foriegner. The easyest way is bring some of them to come just like South Korea and Singapore.
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#3
11:59 October 17, 2009 by staffan
Very good initiative! But, let's hope teachers are not sent by Chinese gov't...
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#4
12:48 October 17, 2009 by barryberry
As a Chinese in Hong Kong, I'm glad to hear Swedish government is trying to introduce Chinese to schools in Sweden. China and Europe have many finanical and economic cooperation and therefore more and more people in Europe want to learn Chinese.

I'm a native speaker of Cantonese, which is an important dialect in Southern China. I hope Swedish government will not only promote Mandarin, but also Cantonese in Sweden. It would be great if Swedish government introduced both Mandarin and Cantonese. I've been learning Swedish for a year. I hope to have an exchange programme to Sweden!
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#5
14:44 October 17, 2009 by Gwrhyr
I spent time living in Taiwan where I learned Chinese. It's a fun language to learn, but then again I was in Taiwan, not China, where the political situation is different, and most people will probably be making their contacts in China.

I agree with Staffan, it wouldn't be the best situation for Sweden to open up so-called "Confucius Institutes" to promote Chinese culture from the view of the mainland Chinese government, a government that spent 60 years trying to wipe-out Chinese culture, and only now tries to use Chinese culture to sell its political message abroad.

And Barryberry, I think Cantonese is a wonderful dialect as well, but I don't think Cantonese will be promoted anywhere these days. Beijing is trying to promote Mandarin in the Cantonese-speaking regions, not the other way around, so I think their goal is to eliminate Cantonese altogether, sadly.
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#6
17:43 October 17, 2009 by Kaethar
Yeah, that would be cool. I would have chosen to study Mandarin as a third language in school instead of Spanish, French or German. They should have a choice for Arabic too, if the demand is high enough, so all the world's/Europe's main languages are covered. That gives students more possibilities.
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