BENTONVILLE — A $10,000 grant and special designation as a “Confucius Classroom” provided a significant boost to Chinese language instruction in the School District.
Officials from the University of Central Arkansas’ Confucius Institute gathered Thursday with students, teachers and administrators in Bentonville High School’s Room 2302 to celebrate the grant.
That room is where Zhang Qian, a native of Hunan province in China, teaches Chinese.
Qian is one of two teachers in the district and seven in the state whose salaries are being paid in part by the Confucius Institute. The teachers specialize in teaching Chinese as a second language.
This is the sixth year Bentonville High School has employed Chinese teachers hired through the institute. The teachers typically stay at their respective schools for two or three years.
The university’s Confucius Institute launched in 2008. It’s the only such institute in Arkansas, but one of more than 100 in the United States and more than 500 in the world, according to Guo-ou Zhuang, director of the institute and an associate professor of Chinese at the university.
Zhuang thanked district administrators for being good partners.
“You have taken good care of our teachers here and they have enjoyed their stay,” Zhuang said. “They have all enjoyed the experience of teaching Chinese here.”
The grant awarded to Bentonville High School is renewable for each of the next five years, Zhuang said.
Some of this year’s grant has been spent on a class set of iPads, brushes, inks, paper and practice mats for teaching Chinese writing. Books and decorations also have been purchased with the money, according to Karen Compton, a former district administrator who was in charge of the Chinese program before retiring this past summer.
Qian and Peng Juhong, who teaches Chinese at West High School, arrived two weeks late for this school year from China because of complications with their visas, Compton said.
Both teachers said this is their first time in the United States, but they have prior experience teaching in foreign countries: Qian in Cambodia and Juhong in Thailand.
Chinese is one of three foreign languages, along with French and Spanish, taught at the district’s high schools.
Jack Loyd, Bentonville High School’s principal, thanked the university and the institute for their help getting teachers for the school, all of whom have exceeded the school’s expectations “without fail,” he said.
“When you start looking for a foreign language teacher, there aren’t many out there. That’s especially true when you’re looking for a Chinese teacher,” Loyd said.
Students are lucky to have a native Chinese speaker as their teacher, Loyd added.
About 130 students from Bentonville High and West High schools are taking Chinese this semester. They include Brianne Gehring, a Bentonville High sophomore, who’s enrolled in Chinese I.
“I like to learn about their traditions and holidays and how to write it, because it’s very beautiful,” said Gehring, 16. “But it’s hard to pronounce.”
Zhuang noted strong bonds between China and Arkansas, at least from a business perspective. Wal-Mart, for example, operates more than 400 stores in China. A Chinese company announced in April it would build a $1 billion pulp mill in Clark County near Arkadelphia.
“So the business connection with China is growing stronger and stronger, bridging Arkansas and China,” he said. “Our task is to prepare Arkansas youth for an increasingly globalized world.”
Gov. Asa Hutchinson and other state officials were scheduled to leave today for China to build business and governmental relationships.
Teach Chinese in Arkansas Program
The Confucius Institute at the University of Central Arkansas runs the Teach Chinese in Arkansas program. Here are the schools where its native Chinese speakers are teaching this year:
• Arkansas School for Math, Science and Arts (Hot Springs)
• Bentonville High School
• Bentonville West High School
• Cross County Schools
• Hot Springs High School
• Lighthouse Academy
• Wynne School District
Source: University of Central
Arkansas’ Confucius Institute
Dave Perozek can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWADaveP.