Milestone as Scotland gets first teachers of Chinese

Published on Sunday 21 June 2009 23:14

SCOTLAND's first teachers of Chinese are to become fully registered members of the profession, in the latest move to boost the subject in schools.

Although several Mandarin speakers have been teaching in schools on a language assistant basis or as trainees, this is the first batch to become fully fledged secondary teachers.

The six, who are mostly of Chinese birth or descent, will be given full registration by the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS), the profession's governing body, next month.

Their success follows a drive to offer the subject in Scotland with special classrooms and Higher qualifications created.

After registration, the six will teach at St George's School in Edinburgh, which has led Mandarin education in Scotland, Grange Academy in East Ayrshire, and Bathgate Academy.

Rachel Tsai, a Chinese language teacher at St George's School, said:

"The attitude (of pupils] to learning is very important. They have to be prepared to work hard."

Ms Tsai starts by teaching the sounds of the Chinese language before moving on to the characters, and says some pupils with dyslexia tend to do very well when they get to the character stage. She added: "Scottish children have a much more logical and analytical approach to learning than Chinese children.

"Chinese children tend to accept the information without analysing it but Scottish children are much more analytical."

China has the third largest economy in the world and in 2007 the Scottish Government created eight special Confucius classrooms to promote learning of Mandarin as a key language.

In March, Tesco chairman David Reid criticised the UK for teaching too little Chinese in schools, but he praised Scotland for having given children an "advantage" over English youngsters.

Tony Finn, chief executive of the GTCS, said: "Learning Mandarin will give our young people a distinct advantage."

Madam Tan, the Chinese consul-general, added: "This is an important milestone of Chinese language teaching in Scotland."

The qualifications in Mandarin and Cantonese will be offered to pupils for the first time after the summer holidays, alongside Advanced Highers.

Glasgow, West Lothian and North Ayrshire have said they will each have one school offering the Higher.

But a survey by The Scotsman revealed 25 councils will not be offering the qualification.