Should Chinese not be a Leaving Cert subject?

leonardjos · 28-10-2009 1:06pm #1

Mods, feel free to move if this is in the wrong place.

I have been researching this and am surprised that Chinese is not a leaving certificate subject. Does anyone know if anything is being proposed or planned?

From my research I have found that these are the current Languages for the Leaving Cert in their respective headings:

Modern Languages
Arabic
French
German
Irish
Italian
Japanese
Russian
Hebrew
Spanish
Russian

Non-curricular EU languages (available for students who meet certain criteria)
Bulgarian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
Estonian
Finnish
Modern Greek
Hungarian
Latvian
Lithuanian
Polish
Portuguese
Romanian
Slovakian
Swedish

Arts and Humanities
Ancient Greek
Latin

I must admit that I find it difficult to understand why our country's future talent have the option to study languages such as Latin, Arabic and Hebrew but not Chinese

Not that anyone needs reminding but here are a few compelling reasons why it might be added to the Leaving Cert:

-World's most spoken language by any measurement. Mandarin has 845 million first language speakers mainly in China, Taiwan and Singapore.
-This compares to the 2nd most spoken language being English with 328 million first language speakers.
-China is the third largest economy in the world after the US and Japan.
-China has had the fastest-growing major economy for the past 30 years with an average annual GDP growth rate above 10%.
-China is the most populous in the world with over 1.3 billion people, approximately one-fifth of the world's population.
-China's foreign exchange reserves have reached US$2.1 trillion, making it by far the world's largest.
-China is now the world's third biggest consumer of luxury goods with 12% of the global share.
-China currently has the most cell phone users in the world with over 700 million users in July 2009. It also has the largest number of internet and broadband users in the world.

Sources: Various Wikipedia pages

dory · 28-10-2009 2:44pm

Those languages are there to cater for immigrants who speak those languages, and might slip up on English/Irish exams as far as I know, not to give Irish people a chance to study an exotic language.
I've never heard of an Irish person sitting Latvian in the Leaving. Lovely idea but the demand wouldn't be there to hire a teacher and the Irish young uns couldn't share a class with native Latvians.
It's all down to how many Chinese people sit the Leaving Cert I believe.

leonardjos · 28-10-2009 2:50pm

Dory, your point is only valid for the 'Non-curricular EU languages' which is driven by EU guidelines. Hence Chinese can never fall into this category.

The other languages I mentioned such as Latin, Arabic and Hebrew do not fall into this category. They are fully fledged Leaving Cert subjects which are designed for English speaking students.

lauralee28 · 28-10-2009 3:50pm

leonardjos wrote: »

Dory, your point is only valid for the 'Non-curricular EU languages' which is driven by EU guidelines. Hence Chinese can never fall into this category.

The other languages I mentioned such as Latin, Arabic and Hebrew do not fall into this category. They are fully fledged Leaving Cert subjects which are designed for English speaking students.

Are you aware of the current educational cutbacks?:rolleyes:

leonardjos · 28-10-2009 3:56pm

lauralee28 wrote: »

Are you aware of the current educational cutbacks?:rolleyes:

Indeed, why fund an educational system that prepares students for the modern economy?! After all, all that money is desperately needed by the poor unfortunate banks!

lauralee28 · 28-10-2009 8:54pm

leonardjos wrote: »

Indeed, why fund an educational system that prepares students for the modern economy?! After all, all that money is desperately needed by the poor unfortunate banks!

Yeah you're right, schools should get funding for teachers of chinese. Never mind the learning support and special needs assistance that has been cut in the budget or the thousands of unemployed teachers of other subjects:rolleyes:. I have no problem funding the educational system and see first hand the effects of the cuts in my school. But fund the schools where necessary, not for flippin chinese!You can't be a teacher surely!?
What planet are you on????:rolleyes:

leonardjos · 28-10-2009 9:40pm

Just because I'm not a teacher doesn't mean I can't have an opinion on the educational system. Sometimes you have to be outside the system to see the bigger picture. We shouldn't be content for our educational system just to thread water, we should be open to reforming and improving it. And when I say improving and reforming that is not code for throwing more money at the problem.

Adding Chinese to the Leaving Cert shouldn't be something that would incur huge expense. And it also doesn't mean that every school in the country would be obliged to teach it or hire a new teacher. After all Latin, Arabic and Hebrew are on the Leaving Cert and they are not burdening the system with unnecessary expense. Schools and students would simply have the option to cover it if they wanted to.

By the way, I agree that funding for special needs assistance and so forth shouldn't be cut. I was having a go at the government for diverting hugely needed funds into NAMA. I think the teaching of languages is only one area where we need to be re-evaluating how we are equiping our students for the real world that awaits once they graduate. It's a tough world out there, and its probably going to get tougher.

delta_bravo · 28-10-2009 11:40pm

Slightly related to this I wonder why Hebrew studies has not been removed from the Junior and Leaving Certificate list of examinable subjects. Less than 10 people have taken the subject at lc level in the last 5 years and this will probably continue as the Jewish community in Ireland has been in decline in recent decades.

asdasd · 28-10-2009 11:44pm

-This compares to the 2nd most spoken language being English with 328 million first language speakers.

sounds a bit low.

pjtb · 29-10-2009 6:01pm

The OP has a valid point. Recession or no recession a valid point is a valid point.

If students can take Japanese at Leaving Cert level then surely it is within the realms of possibility that Chinese could be taken as well.

I'm sure it would be a very costly exercise to develop a curriculum though. It's not as straight forward as a DES official or NCCA official just deciding what would be studied in the subject. It is a long process to develop a curriculum to a stage where it is implemented in schools. And even when it is implementable very few schools would choose to offer it, even if the Celtic Tiger (RIP) was still alive.

Japanese is a fairly recent addition to the LC programme, and doesn't have massive numbers taking it. But it is there nonetheless. I'm sure Chinese would have a greater uptake than Japanese if it was introduced.

dory · 29-10-2009 9:21pm

pjtb wrote: »

If students can take Japanese at Leaving Cert level then surely it is within the realms of possibility that Chinese could be taken as well.

Japanese being on the list is irrelevant to the vast bulk of students as the schools wouldn't offer it anyway. People would have to go out of their way to get private Jap lessons, which I suppose one could do for Chinese too.

But how many 15 year olds really think of the global economy? More than anything they'd be thinking of the hot French ones they could score with a few words of that.

Chinese is taught in a good few Universities. If they have the facilities for that then great, young people of Ireland get thir Chinese education, and post-primary schools can work on other areas.

pjtb · 29-10-2009 10:22pm

dory wrote: »

Japanese being on the list is irrelevant to the vast bulk of students as the schools wouldn't offer it anyway. People would have to go out of their way to get private Jap lessons, which I suppose one could do for Chinese too.

My school had Japanese as an option for LC. And other schools in my area had it as well; the same Japanese teacher taught in a few different schools. Obviously not every school offers it, but there are many subjects in the LC programme that are not offered by every school.

dory wrote: »

But how many 15 year olds really think of the global economy? More than anything they'd be thinking of the hot French ones they could score with a few words of that.

How many 15 year olds want to go to school in the first place?! How many 15 year olds want to study Maths and English?! And I don't think that many students pick French for the reason you stated:D.

evolving_doors · 30-10-2009 8:05pm

If it can be done for Japanese it should be done for Chinese...simple as..

rainbowtrout · 30-10-2009 8:48pm

Arabic is taken by students in a school in Tripoli, Libya which follows the LC curriculum. If you have a look at any LC timetable for the last number of years you'll see that it's examined at the same time as Irish. There may be a few students sitting the exam in this country, but that is it's main function.

Latin, Ancient Greek and I suspect Hebrew have been around for some time as exam subjects and would have been far more popular many years ago. They can be provided as long as there is a demand (albeit small) for them and schools can provide them. It's far easier to provide examinations in subjects with an established curriculum than to develop a new curriculum for a new subject.

Us teachers of Agricultural Science haven't had a change in the curriculum for the subject since 1969. Considering the importance of agriculture in this country, and the length of time we are waiting, it'll be a long time before Chinese is a Leaving Cert subject in this country.

kermitpwee · 31-10-2009 1:05am

Chinese is not needed for the modern economy. English is the language used in world business. Chinese people spend their time going to third level in english speaking countries to learn english for their future business careers not the other way round.

leonardjos · 02-11-2009 11:14am

kermitpwee wrote: »

Chinese is not needed for the modern economy. English is the language used in world business. Chinese people spend their time going to third level in english speaking countries to learn english for their future business careers not the other way round.

In that case, why are we bothering to teach foreign languages at all? The whole world will just learn English and come knocking on our doors with lucrative business deals.

leonardjos · 02-11-2009 11:19am

rainbowtrout wrote: »

It's far easier to provide examinations in subjects with an established curriculum than to develop a new curriculum for a new subject.

No argument there, but that's hardly the point!

kermitpwee · 02-11-2009 3:51pm

leonardjos wrote: »

In that case, why are we bothering to teach foreign languages at all? The whole world will just learn English and come knocking on our doors with lucrative business deals.

I don't have any opinion on why we are teaching foreign languages.

My point is that chinese is not needed for our economy to grow and I cant see a reason why it should be introduced to the leaving. Imo just because other languages are available in the leaving cert is not a valid argument for the introductiuon of chinese. Whether these languages have a valid basis for examination purposes is a different debate.

rainbowtrout · 03-11-2009 7:36pm

leonardjos wrote: »

No argument there, but that's hardly the point!

Well in a way it is. It can take years to develop a curriculum, often when it is finally put in place it is deemed to be out of date. Ask around about the DCG course that has replaced Tech Drawing and has only been examined once so far. To develop a curriculum takes time and money, and if it is to be a minority subject, it will have very little return. Money could be better spent on updating subjects that are popular but are in need of an overhaul.

evolving_doors · 04-11-2009 12:24am

rainbowtrout wrote: »

Well in a way it is. It can take years to develop a curriculum, often when it is finally put in place it is deemed to be out of date. Ask around about the DCG course that has replaced Tech Drawing and has only been examined once so far. To develop a curriculum takes time and money, and if it is to be a minority subject, it will have very little return. Money could be better spent on updating subjects that are popular but are in need of an overhaul.

Didn't seem to be any great hullabaloo about doing it for Japenese..What's been the "return" on this language to students to date?

Comparing the new DCG V's Old Tech drawing syllabus is a different kettle of fish...
To create a syllabus for a language the criteria should be more or less the same as with any languge. I reckon you could take the curriculum from the Japanese one and modify it quite easily to create a chinese curriculum. What's the difference in structure...a written comprehension...a composition section..an aural...an oral...? What's the big deal..

pjtb · 04-11-2009 1:15am

Japanese is very different to languages like French and German, so the syllabus for it is very different. The fact that it is only studied for two years is another reason for it being so different. You only get a very basis fluency level in the language from studying it at Leaving Cert. Students who took it in my old school were talking very simply when nearing the time for their oral, saying things like 'I like school. School in Ireland is different to Japan.'. They could only speak about an extremely limited range of topics in the language. One's standard in French or Spanish after Leaving Cert would be much higher. So Leaving cert study of the language is really only a taster of it. It's an ab initio course.

According to this document, page 5, 208 students took Japanese in the 2009 examination. That's compared to 99 which took it in 2008, which is quite a jump. According to this chief examiner's report, only 31 students took it 2004, and even less before that. So the numbers taking it have risen fairly substantially.

maninasia · 09-11-2009 7:40am

kermitpwee wrote: »

Chinese is not needed for the modern economy. English is the language used in world business. Chinese people spend their time going to third level in english speaking countries to learn english for their future business careers not the other way round.

This betrays your ignorance, China is already the world's biggest market for some industries such as energy, manufacturing and possibly soon for luxury goods. If you want to SELL into a market you'd better have some local language ability.....
Say an Irish company wants to export its good/services to China/Asian region, who does it choose to manage this, the person who speaks Chinese or the one that doesn't (all else being equal). This is a bad example given the dearth of Irish industry but for many UK/Germany/US companies the Chinese market is already a key part of their business revenue.

Not only that, China's influence on the world stage is growing, having Chinese will be a very useful tool for career advancement in the future. In fact Chinese can be used quite happily as a means of communication in Asia rather than English as Chinese tourists and businessmen are becoming ubiquitous and there are large numbers of ethnic Chinese worldwide. Do you think it is easier to be understood in Japan in English when shopping/eating? Wrong, it is much easier to find somebody who speaks Chinese! In addition Chinese tourists are quickly becoming the largest contribution to tourism coffers among non-EU tourists into Europe, i.e., if you want to work in tourism it would be a good idea to learn at least some Chinese.

Learning Chinese to a high level is not easy, but getting a good start in it in school will give any student an excellent leg up in life.

implausible · 09-11-2009 6:53pm

Feel free to correct me, but I thought that there was no one Chinese language, but various versions - Mandarin, Cantonese etc

Sounds like a lot of hassle for a subject that wouldn't have a high uptake. It would only be offered in a small number of schools to an elite group of students. Surely if there was a demand, this would have come up before.

maninasia · 12-11-2009 9:15am

The demand may not have been there but certainly should be now. It may not be high yet but it is growing. Elite schools, that's defeatist thinking!

kermitpwee · 12-11-2009 1:14pm

maninasia wrote: »

This betrays your ignorance, China is already the world's biggest market for some industries such as energy, manufacturing and possibly soon for luxury goods. If you want to SELL into a market you'd better have some local language ability.....
Say an Irish company wants to export its good/services to China/Asian region, who does it choose to manage this, the person who speaks Chinese or the one that doesn't (all else being equal). This is a bad example given the dearth of Irish industry but for many UK/Germany/US companies the Chinese market is already a key part of their business revenue.

Not only that, China's influence on the world stage is growing, having Chinese will be a very useful tool for career advancement in the future. In fact Chinese can be used quite happily as a means of communication in Asia rather than English as Chinese tourists and businessmen are becoming ubiquitous and there are large numbers of ethnic Chinese worldwide. Do you think it is easier to be understood in Japan in English when shopping/eating? Wrong, it is much easier to find somebody who speaks Chinese! In addition Chinese tourists are quickly becoming the largest contribution to tourism coffers among non-EU tourists into Europe, i.e., if you want to work in tourism it would be a good idea to learn at least some Chinese.

Learning Chinese to a high level is not easy, but getting a good start in it in school will give any student an excellent leg up in life.

I thought China was an export economy due to its low labour costs?

Imo Ireland will never be exporting to China. What would we export? China is full of multinationals who then export to other countries.

leonardjos · 12-11-2009 3:46pm

kermitpwee wrote: »

I thought China was an export economy due to its low labour costs?

A successful export economy will eventually lead to greater imports in that economy. The trade imbalance would naturally lead to a strenghtening of the currency of the exporting country. Over time this allows the people in the exporting economy to import more. Over time this should correct the trade imbalance.

This is economics 101. Of course other factors like political supports for currencies and trade barriers could delay or dampen this effect.

kermitpwee wrote: »

Imo Ireland will never be exporting to China. What would we export? China is full of multinationals who then export to other countries.

Ireland is also full of multinationals that export everything from software to pharmiceuticals. Indigenious Irish businesses can export things that are in demand in China such as beef, seafood, professional services, consultancy services etc.

kermitpwee · 12-11-2009 4:38pm

leonardjos wrote: »

A successful export economy will eventually lead to greater imports in that economy. The trade imbalance would naturally lead to a strenghtening of the currency of the exporting country. Over time this allows the people in the exporting economy to import more. Over time this should correct the trade imbalance.

This is economics 101. Of course other factors like political supports for currencies and trade barriers could delay or dampen this effect.

Ireland is also full of multinationals that export everything from software to pharmiceuticals. Indigenious Irish businesses can export things that are in demand in China such as beef, seafood, professional services, consultancy services etc.

China is hugely corrupt and remember economics 101 is based on keeping certain factors constant before it can make a conclusion, this does not happen in the real world. In fairness you have alluded strongly to political problems. I just cant see Ireland exporting to China or how putting Chinese on the Leaving Certificate is going to be benefit to the irish economy.

maninasia · 13-11-2009 5:21am

China is corrupt, what about Ireland? As far as I can see it's Ireland that should be worrying about it's economic future! Massive debts written off for banks and rich developers, interlinked political-business class, country with a 20 billion euro deficit this year, entitlements loaded towards public officials.

FYI, many corrupt and autocratic regimes have brought about rapid and amazing improvements in their economies...Korea, Taiwan, Singapore etc. Later these countries opened up their society and became democratic excepting Singapore (and if you ask most Irish people they will say Singapore is a nice place, yet it is at least as autocratic as China with a single party govt, no political protest allowed and regular executions!). There is no Economics 101!

Something you need to understand about China is that it is a huge country with a central government and also powerful provincial governments. Each region has it's own culture, core business and resources (much as could be said for the EU or the US). Many of these provinces are powerful well run entities in their own right competing against each other in investment and prestige. You need to go there to understand this. It is not one 'monolithic' country and culture as you may think.

Anyway...can you not get your head around the fact that a country can be a major importer and exporter at the same time? I wish you could go to China and see Beijing or Shanghai or even their interior cities .. you will see they are here for the long haul. Their infrastructure is far superior to Ireland's. There are problems with pollution and that is unfortunate but it will not stop their future development and they ARE changing their ways and learning. In terms of tools for development of one's career Chinese will certainly be an asset looked favourably on by employers for many decades.

spurious · 13-11-2009 7:03am

Going wildly off topic here, ladies and gents.

kermitpwee · 13-11-2009 11:02am

maninasia wrote: »

There is no Economics 101!

Economics 101 is An Introduction to Economics course in the first year of 3rd level studies in Economics. This is what I thought you were referring to.

kermitpwee · 13-11-2009 11:11am

maninasia wrote: »

Anyway...can you not get your head around the fact that a country can be a major importer and exporter at the same time? .

Yes I can understand this statement. Imo chinese has no valid place in the leaving cert as I can't see Ireland trading anyway siginificantly with China. I do realise that China is a significant force in the world economy. Imo China will not be sending any jobs to Ireland, they have cheap labour themselves. We dont make anything that they can use. Also they wont be buying services of us when there western educated people can provide them for them. Ireland has done well as it has been a gateway for the USA to get into europe, those days are gone, China wont be using us for
anything.

This is why I dont see how the introduction of Chinese in the leaving cert will boost our economy.

Should Chinese not be a Leaving Cert subject?

Comments