CRI听力:Mandarin Language Learning Prospers in the UK

In 2010, the British Government announced a new partnership with China to train one-thousand Mandarin teachers for secondary schools.

At present, there are only one-hundred Mandarin teachers across the whole of Britain.

Siat Vincent is a primary school Mandarin teacher.

She says the biggest issue she faces is that the children don't get to practice outside the classroom.

"The only problem for me as a teacher is that the language is not used anywhere else for the children, so they don't get to practice except when they are with me."

And with so many choices of modern languages on offer at secondary school level, what are the prospects for the Chinese language to be taken up seriously in the UK?

Wu Daming is a senior teaching fellow at the School of Modern Languages at the University of Leeds, England.

He explains Mandarin Chinese just isn't seen as a priority language next to the European languages.

"Still more people are learning French and German, because that continues and if they get French and German in GCSE level or A-Level and they can continue that in the University, but for Chinese, for the moment I think they mainly just learn it for Im going to say like entertainment."

Mike Bastin is a visiting Academic at Tsinghua University and researcher at Nottingham University's School of Contemporary Chinese Studies.

He says British students just don't prioritize learning a language with a view to benefiting their future career.

"UK school children and University students don't think about language in terms of economics its usually just an interest when they choose a foreign language as a second language, its just a hobby which is fine. But there is an economic payback here, the government needs to somehow quantify that pay back in terms of business opportunities for the development of the UK economy as a result of more and more British children and adults being able to speak Chinese."

However, analysts predict China may overtake the US as the world leading economic power in the future, and the ability to speak Mandarin will be a huge asset in the global job market.

Mike Bastin adds something needs to change in order to ensure languages of future economic benefit are taken up more widely and seen as a priority within the British education system.

"We are already falling behind, behind our European competitors, behind America, and obviously Asian competitors as well, so that's a real danger in terms of national competitiveness. In the short term that needs to be very clearly put to the British government and we need to start some process of change."

However, if the latest initiative, a five-year programme to bring 1-thousand new mandarin teachers into UK schools is a success, then one in three secondary schools in Britain will move a step closer to accessing the Chinese language.

For CRI, I'm Rebecca Hume.