By Chen Rui

Overseas students studying Chinese language and culture to teach back in their respective countries were lauded Tuesday at the Award Ceremony for Recipients of the Chinese Language Teaching Scholarship for Foreigners at the Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Liu Yandong, State Councilor of China and Yuan Guiren, Minister of Education addressed the ceremony. Deputy education minister Hao Ping hosted the event, while ambassadors and diplomats from 25 countries attended.

Since the Scholarship for Oversea Chinese Teachers was launched in June 2009, students from more than 50 countries have applied for the scholarship, and 1,021 were accepted and will study in China for Masters’ degree in International Chinese Language Education.

The two-year education program is specifically designed for overseas students, aimed to help them develop their Chinese teaching proficiency and understanding of Chinese culture.

The project’s duration is from 2009 to 2013, and is carried out by the headquarters of Confucius Institutes, offering scholarships to 1,000 foreigners each year who meet the requirements and are willing to devote five years teaching Chinese as a foreign language (TCFL).

Wang Picheng, a teacher from the College of Chinese Language & Culture at Beijing Normal University told the Global Times, “Teacher resources and textbooks are holding back the development of TCFL. Sending Chinese teachers to other countries to promote TCFL cannot ensure the stability of teaching efficiency because of the high turnover of teachers.

“Encouraging foreign teacher resources to study in China and sending Chinese teachers out should be promoted in tandem,” Wang added. “We used to focus on TCFL in college, but I noticed this project also covers foreign teachers in middle schools and language schools.”

French ambassador in China Hervé Ladsous said when he studied Chinese 40 years ago, there were only 20 to 30 people studying Chinese in France. But now the language ranks fifth, with some 24,000 people learning Chinese in France, according to Ladsous.

“We’d also like to see more and more people in China study French,” Ladsous added. “And we have developed efficient projects cooperating with China’s Ministry of Education and Confucius Institutes.”

Going by the Chinese Huang Liwen, a female from Thailand has been studying Chinese for four years and is now studying at Yunnan University. She told the Global Times, “I like learning this language. There are many Chinese businessmen in Thailand, which means a big market for the language.”

An American from New York with the Chinese name Bu Lanni said, “I learn Chinese to help more people and I’m not going to learn the language itself, but also the teaching methodology. Chinese is a miracle which carries the cultural heritage of thousands of years.”

The Confucius Institute is a non-profit organization which was set up in 2004. There are 282 Confucius Institutes and 241 Confucius classrooms in 87 countries. In 2009 there were 200,000 students enrolled, with 2.5 million participating the institute’s activities. The institute sends 5,000 Chinese teachers and volunteers to more than 100 countries to help promote TCFL.