Chinese Language Education Receives Tremendous Welcome in France in This Autumn

Paris, August 27th - Chinese language education is developing at an unprecedented rate among French junior and senior high schools. There are Chinese language teaching sites in every school district in France except for Corsica.

Mr. Joel Bellassen, General Inspector of National Education for Chinese Language of French MOE explained: “In 2005, there were 12,500 French students learning Chinese, in 2009 the number has approached 26,000 and in this year, the number of Chinese learners in France is about 30,000 (the total number of students in France is 5,300,000). This has made France the largest Chinese learning country in Europe. We cannot consider Chinese learning a fad anymore.”

Bellassen stated that within the total number of Chinese learners in France, 40% began to learn Chinese in junior high, while some began in the grade 6 (the 1st year of junior high), the other 60% started to learn Chinese in grade 2 (the 1st year of senior high), “however a few years ago, it would have been a special case for students to begin to learn Chinese in junior high.”

Bellassen believed that there are 3 reasons why students would choose to learn Chinese: first, personal interest in the greatness of China, the history and vigor of Chinese culture; second, personal challenge; third, students like to become unique among others through the experience of learning Chinese.

He said: one of the characteristics of Chinese education is that “all students, in spite of their academic results, must learn from the very beginning”.

Chinese education has a long history in France. In 1814, Jean Pierre Abel Rémusat, a French doctor (sinologist) founded the first Chinese lecture in College De France, which was also the first in Europe. Chinese curricula was first opened in French senior high schools in 1958, and in junior high schools since 1970s.

Chinese education was popular not only in those blocks in where Chinese immigrants lived, but among the rich, the ordinary people’s living residential areas, such as Montreuil, the suburb areas and distant countryside. In Brittany, children are particularly interested in the Chinese language.

Due to the Chinese fever sweeping through France, the French Ministry of National Education is struggling against the problem of Chinese teacher employment. Currently, there are 400 Chinese teachers nationwide, only 40% of which have teacher’s qualification.

According to the National Education Ministry, they have increased the pace in Chinese teacher employment, because every year all teacher’s qualification examinations in France (including the middle school teacher’s qualification certificate (CAPES) for domestic and foreign candidates and the academic titles for university and middle school teachers (AGREGATION)) only approve 12 Chinese teachers. Bellassen added “the demand is very large, so we also hire some overseas Chinese to teach Chinese.”

One example is that the National Education Ministry was satisfied to find a Chinese lady who married a French man to teach Chinese in order to establish a Chinese class in Bazeilles in Ardennes.

Over the past decade, Chinese has exceeded Russian, Portuguese, Arabic and Hebrew and become the 5th largest foreign language in French schools.

The development of Chinese education in France is still under way because China has become the top priority of immigration destination for European people, beyond the US and the UK.