High school students in Michigan could soon learn Chinese language and culture through an interactive video game due to a partnership between MSU and the Chinese government.
MSU will announce the venture today with China's National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language and the China Central Radio and Television University in Beijing, to create the Michigan State University Confucius Institute. The partnership will focus its efforts on providing online Mandarin Chinese education for K-12 students and adults across the state.
"It is the most commonly understood dialect," said Daniel Schultz, the senior development and policy adviser of the Michigan Virtual University, which will administer the language courses.
Schultz said the program could incorporate a new language video game, being developed by MSU, to teach the dialect.
The game begins in a rural Chinese village, and the player must master some beginning Chinese vocabulary to earn enough experience to move to the city. As a player becomes more proficient in these skills, they can teach the other players in the online environment, earning the experience they need to buy other lessons and move to more advanced parts of the game world.
Schultz said interest in the language is increasing as more people become aware of competition from globalization at a local level.
"There has been a lot of student interest and parent interest," Schultz said. "We have a waiting list for our introductory course we will be teaching in the fall."
Xu Lin, director general of the National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language and a delegation from the office, attended a presentation by Yong Zhao, director of the U.S.-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence, on Sunday to see how the center planned to teach Michigan students online.
The group gathered around a table on the first floor of Erickson Hall to watch a demonstration of an online video game designed to provide interactive learning.
"This environment is the best because it offers total immersion in the language," Zhao said to the delegates. "This is better than physical immersion, because in the real world you can't stop and ask people to say that again."
Zhao said the game was unique because it incorporated Chinese culture, so students will learn the language while also learning how to use chopsticks, set a Chinese table and read the Chinese fortune-telling method called I-Ching.
"Traditional language programs use the computer as instructor," he said. "That ignores the social environment, which is where people born into a language learn."
Jeff Riedinger, acting dean of International Studies and Programs at MSU, said the program will begin with Michigan high school students this fall.
"When we identify sufficient funding from the U.S. government, we will quickly move into language training for business people," Riedinger said.
In January, President Bush unveiled his National Security Language Initiative, a $114-million proposal to keep the country globally competitive and increase national security. MSU officials say the institute will serve as a model for online language education they hope will generate federal funding for future projects.
Languages considered "strategic" by the White House include Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Farsi and Hindi.
Lin said the initiative also is important for China's economy. She said students in all of China's schools are required to learn English, but as the rapidly developing country grows more economically powerful, it will be necessary for more people across the globe to learn the language to make business connections there.
"We want the U.S. to learn Chinese like Chinese, to learn our culture as well, and find it interesting," Lin said.
