Five Duval County Public Schools Selected to
Host Guest Teachers from China
JACKSONVILLE – Mandarin Oaks and Rufus Payne elementary schools, Stanton College Preparatory School, Mandarin High School and Mandarin Middle School have been selected to host a native Mandarin-speaking teacher as part of the 2008 Chinese Guest Teacher Program.
One hundred and thirty-six teachers will be placed across 32 states in both school and district assignments to teach at the high school, middle school and elementary school levels starting in August. This is the third group of teachers to arrive in the United States as part of an ongoing collaboration between Hanban, China’s Office of Chinese Language Council International and the College Board.
The program represents a unique opportunity for students and educators to learn Chinese and learn about China from a native speaker. In addition, guest teachers will assist with curriculum development, student recruitment and materials development and will serve as a cultural resource for other subject areas and for cultural enrichment activities.
“We want to develop students with the competence and multilingual communication skills needed in an increasingly global community,” said Duval County Public Schools’ Supervisor of World Languages, Dr. Joanne Davis. “Exposure to the Chinese language and culture will provide our students with advantages in education, business and the Arts.”
The Chinese Guest Teacher Program is a collaboration of the College Board, the National Council of State Supervisors for Languages (NCSSFL) and China’s Office of Chinese Language Council International (Hanban). Teachers receive a monthly living stipend directly from Hanban while local schools are responsible for mentoring, housing, transportation and the costs of the required visa processing and required insurance. The College Board and NCSSFL representatives interview guest teachers individually to assess teaching skills, adaptability and English proficiency.
The guest teachers work at host schools for one year and then have the option to stay for up to three years if both the school and teacher are satisfied. The Chinese Guest Teacher Program seeks to address the shortage of qualified Chinese teachers in the United States and meet the growing interest in Chinese among U.S. students.
“We’re more excited than ever about how the Chinese Guest Teacher Program continues to grow,” said College Board President Gaston Caperton. “Having started out with 37 guest teachers in 2006, the total number of teachers hosted in the U.S. through the program for 2008-09 will be 193, including the 136 new participants.”
In an Advanced Placement Program® (AP®) survey conducted in 2004, nearly 2,400 high schools expressed an interest in offering the AP Chinese course in 2006-07, but for many of these schools, this goal may go unrealized. They either are understaffed or have no teacher of Chinese, and many see no prospect of finding the teachers necessary to build their programs. This increasingly common predicament underscores the shortage of qualified teachers of Chinese in the United States. According to the Chinese Language Association of Secondary-Elementary Schools, there are currently only about 250 Chinese language teachers in U.S. secondary schools.
Chinese is the most widely spoken first language in the world. It is the national language of the more than 1.3 billion inhabitants of China and millions more ethnic Chinese around the globe.
Established by the Chinese government in 1987, Hanban is the nation's official agency authorized to promote Chinese language and culture internationally, fulfilling a function similar to that of the United Kingdom’s British Council and France's Alliance Française.
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