| It is sometimes hard to experience a sense of passion that is completely moving, but I experienced that type of passion when I met three teachers from China at Tombaugh Elementary School for the Las Cruces magazine photo shoot and interview. I, having never interviewed someone from China, was anxious about the meeting. Would I ask the right questions? Would we understand each other? Was this really the best feature cover story for our magazine? From the moment I shook the hands of Jinyun Wang, Zheng Xing and Junna Liu, I realized my worries were all unnecessary. Questions didn’t matter because we communicated through casual conversation, we understood each other most of the time (and when we didn’t, we laughed about it) and this, most definitely, was the best feature cover story for our magazine.
The teachers arrived in Las Cruces as part of a teacher exchange program through the Confucius Institute at New Mexico State University (NMSU). The Chinese
Language Council International in Beijing, China, which administers the Confucius Institutes throughout the world, provides trained teachers of Chinese as a second language and teaching materials to all the Confucius Institutes. Lucky for Las Cruces, Jinyun, Zheng and Junna, along with five other Chinese teachers, were assigned to our city.
The Confucius Institute at NMSU was inaugurated in August of 2007 and is currently run by Professor of History and Co-Director Dr. Ken Hammond, College Assistant Professor of History and Co-Director Elvira Hammond and China-side Co-Director and Professor Zhuoliang Mao. Stephen Vann, office manager, helps ensure everything in the Institute runs smoothly. The Confucius Institute is a joint partnership between NMSU and the Shijiazhuang College of Language and Cultural Exchange in Hebei, China – a partnership that developed in 2001 as a way to initiate Chinese language studies at NMSU and facilitate NMSU students studying in China.
“The mission of the Confucius Institute at NMSU is to provide opportunities for the southern New Mexico community to learn about Chinese language and culture through a variety of activities,” Elvira says. “Our farmers and business-people are trading more with China, our students are learning more about Chinese history and culture at their schools and our citizens are more and more curious about this rising power across the Pacific.”
In addition to facilitating educational exchange between China and Las Cruces, the Confucius Institute offers a Speakers Series of world renowned experts on various aspects of Chinese history and culture and has held two major conferences: China-Mexico-U.S. Relations in 2008 and China in Africa in 2010. The office of the Confucius Institute maintains a resource room of materials on Chinese language and culture in both Chinese and English.
Teachers in the program first arrived in spring of 2008 to teach in Hatch Valley High School and Alma d’arte Charter School for the Arts. Since then, the Confucius Institute has discontinued teaching in Hatch due to the cost of commuting and budget restraints, but teachers remain at Alma d’arte. In fall of 2008, the elementary program began at Tombaugh Elementary.
“Principal Cindy Baker has an extraordinary team of teachers and staff who are dedicated to preparing their students for success in the 21st century,” Elvira says.
One teacher taught grades 1-3 for two 25-minutes sessions each week and then kindergarten was added in the spring of that academic year. That same year, Tombaugh applied for, and was awarded, a Teachers of Critical Languages Program Grant through the U.S. Department of State, which sent a teacher from China to Tombaugh in Fall of 2009. Kindergarten through fifth grade instruction also started at Hillrise and Desert Hills Elementary Schools in 2009. Next year University Hills Elementary School will begin K-5 Chinese language instruction.
“In a few years Las Cruces Public Schools (LCPS) will have hundreds of students completing elementary school with a foundation in Chinese language and culture, and looking for a middle school that offers Chinese language studies,” Elvira says. “That is something we are working with LCPS on establishing.”
The benefits of bringing Chinese teachers to Las Cruces are immediate. There is the benefit of second-language learning, enhancing mental flexibility and developing both literacy and numeracy, and the benefit of having a working knowledge of the Chinese language for students preparing to enter college and, later, into the job market that increasingly depends on trade with China.
According to the Confucius Institute, there are currently over 350 million Chinese schoolchildren studying English, however there are only 50,000 in the U.S. who have studied Chinese. Following the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Defense identifying Mandarin Chinese and Arabic as “critical languages”, there has been strong growth in Chinese and Arabic programs in kindergarten through 5th grade.
“Our students understand their own culture better when they can compare and contrast with other cultures. Since Las Cruces itself is a multi-cultural community, our students already are prepared to learn that there are many perspectives in this world and that through valuing these different perspectives we are more creative, flexible and strong,” Elvira says. “It’s very important to us that we are not perceived as imposing one culture upon another. We want to work with bilingual and second language educators as an addition to programs already in place – not to replace them.”
Elvira also points out if a student is proficient in English, Spanish and Chinese they can communicate with 90 percent of the world.
Currently there are Chinese language programs in every state in the country, and Elvira does not want children in southern New Mexico to be left out.
“We are far too interdependent now to turn our backs on China. China is a rising force in the world – we must understand it in order to deal with it,” she says. “In these troubled economic times it really makes sense to develop these relationships.”
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