首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Which three foreign languages are traditionally taught in the USA? They are (He/She is) learning Chinese to help with their fut
Which three foreign languages are traditionally taught in the USA? They are (He/She is) learning Chinese to help with their fut
admin
2009-05-13
60
问题
Which three foreign languages are traditionally taught in the USA?
They are (He/She is) learning Chinese to help with their future career.
Lecturer: More and more American parents are becoming interested in having their children learn Chinese. This is not only a case of having their children attend private classes or of schools teaching the language instead of, or in addition to, the West European languages that are traditionally studied in the States, like Spanish, French and German. Oh, no. Studying geometry can be taxing for any 10-year-old, but at a select number of American schools, children are not only learning about angles, they are doing it in Chinese. This select number of schools is growing, since Chinese is a hot language thanks to China’s surging economy and growing world clout. Even children as young as 6 are honing their Chinese at school, motivated by a mix of parental prodding and their own desire to do something different. I went to see one of these schools and it really is amazing when you walk into a kindergarten classroom, and the children are ’understanding what the teacher is saying and it’s all in Chinese. Half of the time the kids aren’t even aware that the teacher is speaking a different language. They just fall right into it.
The United States has declared this year to be the "Year of Languages", although few Americans are aware of the designation. According to a survey by the Language Association, more college students are studying foreign languages than ever before. Enrolment in Chinese has risen by 20 percent over the past 3 years. The 1.4 million students learning 15 leading languages represents a 17 percent increase over the same period. However, only 9.3 percent of Americans are able to speak a second tongue, compared to 52.7 percent of Europeans, according to the Census Bureau.
At first glance, weighty national priorities take a back seat to the fun of cultural exchange at Potomac Elementary. Hallways are festooned with Chinese art and learning aids, such as stuffed animals labelled with Chinese names. Children sing Chinese folk songs and American nursery rhymes in Chinese. In the fifth-grade immersion class, songs and games come only after a rigorous vocabulary drill and lessons on triangles and trapezoids-- all taught in Chinese. The students are good at listening and do pretty well at reading, but writing is their weak point, according to the class teacher, who has a Ph.D. in education and was a teacher in his native Beijing.
I asked two of the children--a boy and a girl--about their experiences of learning Chinese. The boy said that mastering Chinese characters was tough. When I asked why, he said that he finds the writing particularly hard because you have to do the strokes in the right order. The girl said that learning Chinese is "cool" and that she is starting to catch on to the complex writing system of characters that contain elements of meaning and sound. She pointed out that it is quite different to English because there’s nothing like letters to refer to. However, she noted that she can remember how to write Coca-Cola in Chinese because it has a lot of little boxes that refer to a mouth. This visual aspect of Chinese characters and how it influences children when they are learning the language is a theme I’ll return to later.
Even though it is clearly the parents who are pushing for more Chinese classes, my research revealed that they are not usually pushing their children too hard, which I think is a good thing. Parents of the kids say they are loathe to plan careers for 10 year olds. To quote one of them, "Even if my child doesn’t use her Chinese going forward, she’s learned so much about another culture." Some of the parents are encouraging their children--directly or indirectly--by taking night classes in Chinese. This has been proven to be a great motivator. If children see their parents learning something, they will usually take an interest in learning it too--or at least take a greater interest in learning generally.
Dreams of selling Coca-Cola and other American products to China have helped drive the. interest in Chinese studies. According to the Language Association, 640 U.S. colleges offer Chinese programs, while 102 schools from kindergarten to 12th grade teach Chinese. Teaching Chinese is also of keen interest to the U.S. government, which launched the National Education Program in 1994 to fund university studies of languages of key world regions, including East Asia and the Middle East. In 2002, the NEP announced that it was placing particular emphasis on programmes to teach Arabic, Chinese, Korean and Russian.
I spoke to some students who had just started learning Chinese here at this university. All of them had learnt Chinese since the age of 11 and some had started even earlier. Student A said he had started learning Chinese eight years ago because he thought it would be pretty fun. However, as he began contemplating college, he recognised that there were good opportunities for employment in China upon graduation. As he said, China is expanding fast and now they need services, including lawyers and businesspeople. Student B said that she wants to follow her father and start her own business and have an office in China. Student C said that he thought his studies would bring national gain as well as personal achievement. To quote him, "When a lot of kids like us grow up and hopefully are able to speak Chinese, and get jobs with businesses who are trading and doing business with China, it will be a big leap for our country."
选项
答案
ABC 【IN ANY ORDER】
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/v1AO777K
本试题收录于:
雅思听力题库雅思(IELTS)分类
0
雅思听力
雅思(IELTS)
相关试题推荐
TherearefewportraitsintheworldasfamousasLeonardodaVinci’sMono.Lisa,buttheidentityofthemodelforthelegendar
Her______shouldnotbeconfusedwithmiserliness;aslongasIhaveknownher,shehasalwaysbeenwillingtoassistthosewhoa
ManycriticsofEmilyBronte’snovelWutheringHeightsseeitssecondpartasacounterpointthatcommentson,ifitdoesnotre
ManycriticsofEmilyBronte’snovelWutheringHeightsseeitssecondpartasacounterpointthatcommentson,ifitdoesnotre
Inarecentstudy,DavidCressyexaminestwocentralquestionsconcerningEnglishimmigrationtoNewEnglandinthe1630s:what
Thenovelistdevotessomuchtimetoaviddescriptionsofhischaracters’clothesthatthereadersoonfeelsthatsuch______conc
Instantcelebrityisoften(i)______assetbecauseifthereisno(ii)______tointerestthepublic—nostageorscreentriumphs,no
WhenshefirstcametoFrancefromBulgaria,shewashardlythe______studentshelatermadeherselfouttobe,sinceshehadacc
Whenevidenceis(i)______,reasonablepeoplemaydemur,butwhenfirmscientificproofhasbeensupplied,theyshould(ii)_____
PopularinterestinmusicperformedbyfolksingerJeanRitchieactedasa(i)______becauseit(ii)______awiderinterestinth
随机试题
下列各项中,不属于投机级债券的是()
根据报警信息的类型和核实对象所在建筑中的位置,迅速做好必要的准备工作,及时到现场进行信息核实。对于()信息,如果火灾探测器等触发器件所在建筑区域安装了视频监控设备,则应先通过查看该区域的监控视频来核实火灾发生的情况。
计算由曲线与y=x2围成的平面图形的面积.
病人先见高热口渴,汗出,后出现消瘦,面色淡白,气短乏力,脉细无力,证属
某房地产在正常情况下,每年可获得有效毛收入30万元,运营费用需要10万元,资本化率为10%,该房地产所在的土地是通过有偿出让获得使用权的,在估价时点剩余的使用权年限为40年,则该宗房地产的收益价格为()万元。
明渠在坡度、粗糙度和过水断面面积给定条件下,水力最佳断面为()。
某年7月22日9时50分左右,某化工厂正在执行甲苯装卸任务的汽车槽车突然发生爆炸起火,将整辆汽车槽车包括车上约1.3t的甲苯全部烧毁,造成2人死亡。1.事故经过7月22日上午,某化工厂租用某运输公司一辆汽车槽车,到铁路专线上装卸外购的
燃气管道的阀门安装要注意的问题主要有:()。
被操作数的最高位移入“进位”位,其余所有位接收其相邻低位值,最低位移入0的操作是(22)指令。被操作数的最高位保持不变,其余所有位接收其相邻高位值,最低位移到“进位”位中的操作是(23)指令。在程序执行过程中改变按程序计数器顺序读出指令的指令属于(24)。
Whiteisthe______colorofaweddinggown.
最新回复
(
0
)