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China to Meet Demand for Chinese Teachers

China is stepping up efforts to train more Chinese language teachers for foreigners because of an increasing popularity of the language, according to the office of Chinese Language Council International on March 19.

 “Each year, there are 10,000 vacancies of teaching Chinese as a foreign language across the world, but only 2,000 teachers are available,” said Xu Lin, director of the office. “The greatest challenge we are facing now is to meet the surging demand for teachers.”

In 2007, quite a number of regular college graduates, no matter what they major in, will be recruited to attend a one-year training course for teaching Chinese as a foreign language, according to Xu.

More than 5,000 people have been certificated as Chinese teachers for foreigners by now and some of them will be selected to learn Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic for a year and then sent to teach in Latin American and Arab countries.

The office also plans to set up another 60 Confucius Institutes and to launch “Confucius Institute online” and “Confucius Institute over broadcast” in 2007, aiming at covering more overseas Chinese learners.