Chinese Teachers Prepare to Teach in United States

From http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-chinese-teachers-20110801,0,7199823.story

Chinese teachers are on a U.S. mission
Dozens of teachers from China are in Los Angeles to prepare for the opportunity of a lifetime: a chance to teach Mandarin in American schools.
By Ricardo Lopez
August 1, 2011

The large ballroom in UCLA's Covel Commons resembled a bustling day-care center one recent day, as laughter rang out across the room.

But the participants, speaking in rapid-fire Mandarin, were not children. They were dozens of Chinese teachers in Los Angeles for a nine-day crash course to prepare them for what they consider the opportunity of a lifetime: to teach Mandarin in American schools.

In a few weeks, 176 Chinese teachers will head to kindergarten through 12th-grade classrooms across the country, from rural Kentucky towns to the tidy suburbs of Salt Lake City. Only two will remain in California, assigned to schools in Redding and Ojai.

The guest teacher program, started in 2007 and partly funded by the federal language initiative, Startalk, is an effort by the College Board and the Chinese government's Chinese Language Council International, also known as Hanban. The agencies want to expand Chinese instruction in the United States. UCLA's Confucius Institute is in its second year of hosting the program.

Read the full article at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-chinese-teachers-20110801,0,7199823.story