1. The trend of Mandarin learning worldwide

Chinese is one of the most used languages in terms of first language users. With the economical growth of China and the current globalization, the craze of studying Chinese as a second /foreign language is catching on worldwide. In the United States, Chinese language is relatively important both diplomatic-wise and business-wise.  The percentage of Chinese language learners has grown drastically in the past few years.

2. The Development of Chinese learning in the United States

In May, 2004, College Board announced the launch of Chinese Advanced Placement Program. The first AP Chinese Language and Culture courses were offered in the fall of 2006, while the first exam took place in May, 2007. Currently, there were 2,400 high schools registered to implement Chinese related programs for the AP Chinese. In sight of the latest and hottest trend of studying Chinese as the second/foreign language, the development of Chinese language learning in America can be analyzed in the aspects below:

Students are Motivated to Learn Chinese

Under the influence of AP Chinese, students with Chinese ethnic background who were reluctant to learn Mandarin now are motivated to learn and to take advantage of their heritage background. This willingness to learn Chinese is not isolated to this specific learner group only. More and more American students are glad to know that Chinese is offered at their current school system.  Most of the students and the parents believed that the ability to communicate in Chinese promises a brighter future.  After all, China is the economy giant of the next century.

Certified Chinese Teachers are in Demand

In year 2005, there were only 200 state-government-certified Chinese teachers in the United States.  This number is far beyond the teacher demand from the 2,400 schools.

In Need of Instructional Materials

Instructional materials catering the needs of American K-12 learners are in demand, with more and more schools implementing Chinese programs. Foreign language learning materials are now evaluated under the 5C standards, which are Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities respectively. In sight of this new standard, a grammar focused material may not be suitable for the current learning trend. A new learning solution helping students developing the target language proficiency in these 5 aspects is very critical.

Computer Assisted Learning Takes the Advantage

Basically, access to Mandarin in a foreign language context, such as the United States, is quite limited, so the language input is not sufficient. In this sense, computer-assisted-learning helps bridge contextual disadvantage by providing abundant input sources and practice opportunity. Besides, AP Chinese Examination is conducted in a computer-based environment. Thus, the application of computer to facilitate learning in listening, speaking, reading and writing has great advantage. Taking Startalk Program of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (a New National Initiative in Summer Language Education) for example, it adopts computers to assist Chinese learning.  Henny Chen, participating teacher, speaking from Irvine, ’’We want to dispel the notion that Mandarin is difficult to learn,"  "It is different but learnable, and when students do learn the characters, they feel very smart."  With a little help from technology, students are much more confident and motivated! Typing to learn Chinese can also ease the burden of writing in the beginning phase of learning. Typing requires students to ‘’think’’ and pronounce Chinese pinyin, which helps them integrate the sounds, form and meaning of each Chinese character, and trains their reading ability.

3. The Digitized Learning Solution- IQChinese

IQChinese Corp.（www.iqchinese.com , a Mandarin learning solution provider, has made its Mandarin learning courseware, IQChinese Go, one of the popular choices in North America. With its strong reference in North America; i.e. 20,000 products install based, 350 participants in teachers training, 300 schools implementing the solution，and 10 authorized learning centers in a year’s time.

IQChinese indicates that the success of IQChinese lies in the core technology, pinning on to the Chinese learning difficulty. Therefore, Mandarin learning is made easy with the technology-embedded multimedia courseware IQChinese Go. Learners can easily acquire Mandarin with the activation of recognizing, reading, typing and listening. During the continuous practices in this learning loop, Mandarin proficiency is reinforced gradually. It is proven that Chinese as second language learners’ reading can be upgraded by 30 times averagely from 20 characters to 600 characters.

IQChinese’s innovative courseware solution, IQChinese Go is designed for Chinese as second/ foreign language and takes the notion that learning should not be restricted to classroom only. With the computer-assisted solution and experiential learning method, they link the whole learning process together, and integrate the service and solution via internet. Mandarin learning market is foreseen prospective worldwide. IQChinese Corp. is the first one who identifies the learning obstacles from learners’ low-motivation, the environment’s limited language input, and Mandarin’s traits, and fixes them with digitized solution. No pains, no gains! Their success in the United States shows that applying digital learning in Mandarin as foreign language is the trend, and it is believed that more and more related business entities would join in Mandarin learning field. 

website：http://www.iqchinese.com/