Chinese school

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A student practices writing Chinese characters

In Western countries, a Chinese school is a school established explicitly for the purpose of teaching the Chinese language (of the various Chinese dialects, nowadays Mandarin Chinese or Cantonese Chinese are almost always the ones taught) to Americans of ethnic Chinese descent, Canadian-born Chinese (CBC) youth, and the youth born in the respective countries.

Typically, Chinese children attend Chinese school either after school (that is, elementary or middle school) on weekday afternoons, or on Saturday/Sunday mornings or afternoons.

Besides teaching the Chinese language, Chinese schools serve as social centers allowing Chinese immigrants and their children to meet other Chinese families. Chinese schools also counter the loss of Chinese culture brought on by cultural assimilation into the local society.

Chinese schools are credited with maintaining the relatively high proportions of North American Chinese youth who are able to read or write Chinese, at least to a limited extent. (Spoken, as opposed to written, Chinese is likely learned as much at home as in a Chinese school.)

Chinese schools are very popular with Chinese parents, who encourage their children to go to Chinese school from a young age. Many Chinese-American children or Jook-sing, however, dislike Chinese school and drop out by middle or high school or even pretend to be ill on the day they attend Chinese School. Currently, the largest Chinese school in the United States is the St. Louis Modern Chinese School.

For a more general discussion of Westerners learning Chinese, see the "Chinese as a foreign language" article.

Amount of Chinese language learners grows very fast in the world. More and more universities and public schools start to offer Chinese language course. But because lack of qualified teachers, they have to cooperate with Chinese schools in China.^[1]