Why Mandarin Chinese??
Then Gov. John M. Huntsman, who is fluent in Mandarin and now serves as the Ambassador of China, really wanted Utah to focus on economic development with China. To accomplish this, we realized that we need to create a workforce that is proficient in Mandarin Chinese. Three and a half years ago, I was hired by the Utah State Office of Education to lead world language programs into the twenty-first century. During my initial meeting with Gov. Huntsman, he looked me straight in the eye and said, “One of the very first charges I am giving you is to get Chinese language programs into our secondary and elementary schools as soon as possible.” We discussed effective ways we could bring Chinese into the Utah public school system, and he then put me in touch with State Supervisor Howard Stephenson (now Senator Howard Stephenson), who was the chairman of the education appropriations committee in Utah. We initiated the “Critical Languages Program,” in 2007 using state legislative funding designed
There are MANY BENEFITS OF LEARNING A 2nd LANGUAGE, other reasons to learn Mandarin Chinese are: · Chinese is most spoken language in the world (Nearly 1/4 of the World’s Population.) · China currently has the fastest growing economy in the world. · Several of today’s top corporations in the world are owned by Chinese businesses.
