From the NPR article “More Americans Learn Their ABCs In Chinese” by Brett Neely (from 1/9/11, here with audio podcast):
China's growing importance to the United States is driving the boomin Chinese education across all levels.
In 2007, the College Board started offering Advanced Placement exams in Chinese for high school students. Almost 5,000 students took the exam in 2010. That's more than double the number from just four years earlier.
College students taking Chinese also more than doubled between 1998 and 2009 to 60,976 students, according to a study by the Modern Language Association.
Still, Spanish remains by far the most-commonly taught foreign language in American classrooms, with 864,986 students enrolled in Spanish classes in 2009, according to the same study.
Although Chinese instruction has grown rapidly over the past decade, it continues to lag a number of languages at the college level, including French and German.
Language Trends
From 1998 to 2009, the number of college students studying Chinese more than doubled.
|
|
Spanish |
French |
Arabic |
Chinese |
Total |
|
1998 |
656,590 (57%) |
199,064 (17%) |
5,505 (0.5%) |
28,456 (2%) |
1,151,283 |
|
2009 |
864,986 (53%) |
216,419 (13%) |
35,083 (2%) |
60,976 (4%) |
1,629,326 |
Source: 2009 MLA Enrollment Survey
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