While English learning has been the rage in China for decades, Chinese as a foreign language is just starting to catch on on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

The study of Chinese used to be concentrated on a few college campuses and in large ethnic Chinese communities on both coasts of North America. But now it is spreading to places where, only a decade ago, such a widespread and sustained interest in the language seemed unimaginable.

When Sharon Wen went to the University of Houston to teach Chinese in 1994, she had only 26 students. This semester she has 170. "I would have had more if the business school had not removed Chinese as a mandatory course," she said.

Wen explained that enthusiasm in the Chinese language began to take shape in the 1980s. After a brief dip in 1989, it gradually regained momentum in the early 1990s. In recent years, enrolment growth has been steady.

Although Chinese is clearly enjoying a rise in popularity, it is far from being the most popular foreign language in North America and, according to most people interviewed for this article, probably will never be.

Spanish and French have traditionally been the most popular candidates for a second language.

Large numbers of Latin American immigrants have made Spanish a useful tool for communication in the United States. In cities such as Los Angeles and Houston, as many as one-third of the television channels are in Spanish or have a Spanish simulcast audio channel. In Canada, French is an official language.

In a 2002 survey of US colleges and universities by the Modern Language Association in New York, 746,267 students were enrolled in Spanish classes and 34,153 in Chinese classes. In fact, Chinese ranked 7th, behind Spanish, French (201,979), German (91,100), Italian (63,899), American Sign Language (60,781) and Japanese (52,238).

But when broken down, the data reveal more information: Graduate students who took Chinese kept constant over a decade, but two-year and four-year undergraduates had double-digit growth. French and German, despite their high enrolments, have not wavered much in popularity, but Chinese has overtaken Spanish in growth rate.

According to Cynthia Ning, executive director of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, Chinese will eventually surpass Japanese and several other languages to become the fourth foreign language in the United States, trailing behind only Spanish, French and German.

Rosemary Feal, executive director of the Modern Language Association, cautioned about levels of study when making such predictions, but she said "Chinese is definitely the largest growth language, and it should be.?

She said she expects that a survey that the association will conduct later this year will reveal a growth rate of more than 20 per cent compared with 2002.

"Chinese is already the third most common spoken language at home in the US, right after English and Spanish,?Feal said. "Chinese study on all levels is on the increase, and I expect the trend to continue.?

Winds of change

The biggest difference for Chinese learners now and those a decade or two ago is their purpose. "Before Chinese became hot, students took it purely out of interest,?said Wen, the University of Houston professor. "Some people studied it to become sinophiles.?

Nowadays, Americans are studying Chinese out of necessity or in search of opportunities. In Silicon Valley, some high-tech companies are even offering their employees free tutoring in the language.

"The opportunities that have popped up because of China's economic growth are the driving force behind most of my students here,?Wen said.

She took a group of these students on a tour of China last summer. Two of them stayed because they landed jobs. One of them is teaching business English in Guangzhou, and the other is working in Hangzhou. Many of their fellow travellers were stunned.

"For the past year or two, China was constantly in the headlines in US mainstream news,?Wen said. "That has an indelible impact on many students.?

On top of that, Chinese culture also has its own allure. "Many youngsters take a natural interest in China because of its mystique,?said Tina Wu, another teacher of Chinese in Houston.

She and others are trying to cultivate this kind of curiosity into a lifelong love.

Wu teaches at Westside High School. "I'm the only one teaching Chinese here, and I have 70 students on five different levels.?

Besides the language, she takes her students to Chinatown, letting them play with chopsticks, looking at Chinese paintings and practising calligraphy with brush pens. "I want to broaden their horizons beyond fried rice,?she laughed, referring to the standard item on Chinese menus in the West.

"The popularity of Japanese in the past two decades is mostly due to the influx of Japanese cultural products, such as comics and cartoons,?Wu said.

"But in our school, Chinese enrolments have already exceeded those for Japanese.?

Grades count

Overall data for high school students taking Chinese in the United States is sketchy, but the curriculum will go through some big changes later this year.

Starting from the fall semester, Chinese will be counted as a course for Advanced Placement (AP), which means the grade points earned in high school will be included in college.

That is expected to bump up enrolment in Chinese considerably because students will then be able to lessen their academic and financial burdens in college, Wu said.

However, she cautioned against misinterpreting the change. "It does not mean every high school will offer AP Chinese,?she said. "You have to have the resources. A typical high school Chinese programme is a one-woman operation.?

Qualified teachers are in short supply. "Where can they be found? Teachers with a Chinese heritage are a ready talent pool, but they will need appropriate training in methodology. Teachers from outside the United States are available, but will they have the necessary US classroom management skills??Yulan Lin of Boston Public Schools asked at a recent forum for Chinese language education.

Wu revealed that China has trained many teachers who are ready to go abroad, but their efforts are often thwarted by the US consulates, which reject their visa applications. "Now we get a few experienced teachers from China and have training sessions here,?she said.

But there is another pool of Chinese language enthusiasts. Running beneath the formal training in high schools is an even larger number of students at "heritage schools,?which are operated by ethnic Chinese communities and enrol mostly students of Chinese descent.

Huaxia Chinese School in Houston is one such example. "We have 1,540 students and 150 teachers, the largest such school in the city, and we're growing at a 10 per cent annual rate,?principal Wendy Zheng said.

"And there are over 20 Chinese schools of this nature, though smaller, in our municipality.?

Most children are sent by their parents, who want them to appreciate their "roots,?Zheng said. But about 10 per cent of them are special cases: They are either adopted by non-Chinese parents or of interracial marriages. In other words, they don't hear a word of Chinese at home, "so we teach them Chinese in English,?Zheng said.

Both Zheng and Wu admitted that there is a practical side to choosing Chinese. For an ethnic Chinese it would be easier to pick up the language. With the added incentive of college grade points, why not learn Chinese if you are supposed to master a second language anyway?

The same is true for students of Latin American origin who enrol in Spanish classes.

The interest in Chinese among all levels of American students, including non-ethnic Chinese, is very real and rising.

Ninety per cent of Wu's beginning class is non-ethnic Chinese. "Spending one hour each day in a regular high school is very different from three hours at a weekend heritage school. They'll have to love it to continue.?

And through passion and perseverance, teachers like Wu have transformed many Americans?interest in Chinese from a casual curiosity into a force that helps cross the cultural divide and bring the two cultures closer.

"My greatest comfort,?Wu said, "is to have non-Chinese love the Chinese culture.?

Source: China Daily