Teacher training

Still, the biggest obstacle remains a lack of trained teachers and the funding to provide more. British Minister of State for Schools David Laws described calls for widespread Chinese lessons as delusional on the basis that there are only a handful of qualified teachers in the UK.

But this is improving with the help of Confucius institutes and their Confucius Classroom initiative. Across Europe Confucius institutes are training teachers who are non-native Mandarin speakers how to teach Chinese in schools.

"We started a training program for non-native speakers in 2010," says Spring Zhang, a program officer and Chinese tutor at the Confucius Institute of the University of Manchester.

"It is a gradual process. Most of the primary-level teachers are non-native speakers, so we encourage them to run after-school clubs."

One of the resources, provided by Hanban, is an interactive poster where the teacher can press on a word and a recording plays. This can be particularly helpful for non-native speakers who are not fully confident with pronunciation, Zhang says.

"The most important thing is to develop a framework. If we can persuade more local teachers to attend the training course we can get Chinese learning into more schools. Then when we do have a native qualified teacher from China available it becomes easier for them to settle down in a local school as the school is already offering some Chinese."

The training courses also provide opportunities for career development among non-native teachers. Zhang has been pleasantly surprised at how well her trainees have dealt with teaching the language, and has witnessed some turn Chinese lessons from an after-school club into a full part of the curriculum.

Those schools that are particularly successful in implementing Mandarin lessons might eventually be conferred Confucius Classroom status. One such school is St Joseph's College in London, which was made a Confucius Classroom in 2010.

"It started 9 years ago, when I went on a visit with 25 teachers and politicians from the area to Shenzhen," says deputy headmaster Kevin Dwyer. "When we came back, I though this sounds a good idea. China is going to be the world's leading country in a short period and instead of just teaching traditional languages like French and German maybe we should be looking at something for the future."

The school brought in a Chinese language assistant with help from the British Council, who started running after-school clubs. When her visa ran out, the school went to great lengths to ensure that she stayed, renewing her work permit and sending her on a full UK teacher training course. She still teaches at the school today.

"We started with after-school clubs and then moved it onto the curriculum. We now have 500 of our 1,050 students studying Mandarin in curriculum time, and more students are now choosing to study it over French," Dwyer says.

With the framework in place, St Joseph's was a prime candidate to become a Confucius Classroom, and has since built a number of links with China, including a partner school in Shanghai.

Still, St Joseph's students are luckier than most when it comes to opportunities to learn Chinese. The challenge is to offer the same chance to children across the continent. Zheng back at the Chinese Learning Centre in London has no doubt the will to learn Chinese is there among the continent's youth.

"We get feedback from some parents saying their children complain during holidays because they don't get to go to Chinese school. This is a massive compliment to us. The earlier we can start them with Chinese the better."

For China Daily

(China Daily 12/14/2012 page12)