College of Arts and Letters – China connections

• Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages: Chinese language courses

Media contact: Professor Chunhong Teng can speak with reporters about the future of Chinese language learning in the U.S., particularly at the university level. She can be reached at (517) 432-1235 or tengc@msu.edu

At Michigan State University, we’ve seen a dramatic rise in the number of students enrolling in Chinese language courses: from spring semester 2005 to spring semester 2006 the number of students studying the language here jumped from 104 to 121. Along with Arabic, Chinese is one of our most popular language offerings outside “traditional” language courses such as Spanish, French, and German. The coordinator of our Chinese language program, Chunhong Teng, attributes this to wider media attention being paid to China’s economy, which is the fastest-growing in the world (and now the world’s fourth largest, recently surpassing Great Britain). She has also noted an increased fascination among students with Chinese culture. Perhaps this has been fuelled in part by the Internet, which has made learning about China easier. 

• Initiatives of MSU’s Center for Language Education and Research (CLEAR), one of 14 federally funded Title VI Language Resource Centers in the nation  

Media contact: Sue Gass, co-director of the Center for Language Education and Research, (517) 353-0800 or gass@msu.edu

1. Multimedia Interactive Modules for Education and Assessment (MIMEA) – This is an online collection of video clips of native Chinese speakers (both mainland and Taiwanese) accompanied by comprehension questions, notes, and transcripts. Students can access these unscripted clips related to a variety of everyday situations, such as asking for directions, giving a compliment, or making a complaint.  Lessons are available for beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels.  Learn more at http://clear.msu.edu/teaching/online/mimea/ 

2. Elementary Business Chinese – This is a CD-ROM for people with little or no training in Chinese who have an interest in learning some beginning Chinese and also about the business environment in China. More information on this product can be found at http://clear.msu.edu/teaching/business/chinese.html

3. CLEAR has been working in partnership with the Lansing Chinese School to provide a series of professional development workshops to teachers from the school. In addition, it partners with MSU’s Asian Studies Center for the annual Workshop for Teachers of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, which is held each summer. Chinese and China-related sessions have also been included in MSU’s annual Language Briefs and World Languages Day events: http://clear.msu.edu/languagebriefs.html and http://clear.msu.edu/wld respectively.

• School of Music Partnership with Shenyang Conservatory of Music

Fall 2005: An exchange program between the MSU School of Music and Shenyang Conservatory of Music in China; involved faculty and students from both institutions; two joint performances in East Lansing, two joint performances in China.

For more information, see the School of Music press release at /www.music.msu.edu/news/showrelease.php?id=132