Chinese language considered tongue of future commerce
SAMOHI A language that has more than 5,000 years of history could soon be in the textbooks here, its tongue joining the likes of Spanish, Japanese and French.
A group of parents are lobbying district officials to begin offering a Chinese language course at Santa Monica High School, pointing out the growing Chinese-American population in the city.
“The demand is here,” Wei Chen, one of the parents rallying for a course, said.
The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District is currently in the process of coordi-nating a foreign language course through its Dual Enrollment program with Santa Monica College, possibly offering one class in the 2008-09 academic year at the SMC campus.
The dual enrollment program allows high school students in the district to take courses for credit at the college.
The district is currently gauging student interest to see whether it can get together a fully-enrolled course in the fall, according to Sally Chou, the chief academic officer with the SMMUSD. About 20 students would be needed to make the class possible.
Chou said interested students should contact their counselors.
If successful in the dual enrollment program, the course could be moved to the Samohi campus in a few years.
“We don’t know how many people we’ll have yet,” Chou said. “To hire a teacher at Samohi, you would basically have to have five sections.
“It would be a perfect set up if we have somebody teaching Chinese and they teach math (the rest of the day),” she added.
Though the course will be offered at SMC, it will be free to Samohi students. The only cost will come from the textbooks.
Ron Furuyama, who heads the Dual Enrollment program at SMC, said the course will most likely be scheduled in the after school hours for high school students. The class will also be open to the SMC community.
Parents have been asking for a Mandarin language class for more than a year, pointing out the growing level of interest in the culture by high school students. Among the arguments in their case is the fact that China has one of the fastest growing economies in the world,seeing the value in the future workforce to have fluency in the language.
“There are a lot of people here already doing business with China,”Chou said.“There will be a lot more, so why not (offer a class)?”
“THERE ARE A LOT OF PEOPLE HERE ALREADY DOING BUSINESS WITH CHINA.” — Sally Chou Chief Academic Officer
Hui-Ling Chen, the mother of an incoming freshman at Samohi, said the similarities between Chinese, Japanese and Korean will also allow her son to have some comprehension in the other Asian languages. One of the Japanese systems of writing — Kanji — was adopted from China.
“If he can read Chinese, he can read Korean and Japanese,” Chen said. “He’ll be able to learn a completely different language and have a chance to learn a different culture.”
Wei Chen, who first approached Lincoln Middle School officials last year about starting a Chinese language course, said she expects non-Asian students will also sign up for the course.
She said one of her daughter’s friends, who is Jewish, has expressed interest because it might give him an advantage later on in life.
“This is the language of the future,” Chen said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 23, 2008. Read the original PDF.