大衛·卡梅倫呼籲英國學生多學中文

David Cameron, who has notoriously poor schoolboy French, is urging today's youngsters to abandon the language of Molière and Voltaire to concentrate on the tongue of the future – Mandarin.

In a parting shot, as he left China after a three-day visit, the prime minister said that pupils should look beyond the traditional French and German lessons and instead focus on China.

To reinforce his message the prime minister quoted Nelson Mandela, who said learning someone else's language is the best way to their heart. Cameron said: "I want Britain linked up to the world's fast-growing economies. And that includes our young people learning the languagesto seal tomorrow's business deals.

"By the time the children born today leave school, China is set to be the world's largest economy. So it's time to look beyond the traditional focus on French and German and get many more children learning Mandarin.

"As Mandela once said: 'If you talk to a man in a language he understands that goes to his head, if you talk to him in his own language that goes to his heart.'"

Cameron, who visited a school for six- and seven-year-olds learning English in Chengdu, said that a partnership between the British Council and Hanban – the Chinese National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language – will double the number of Chinese language assistants in the UK by 2016 and provide increased funding to lower the cost to schools of offering Mandarin as a language option.

In an expansion of the UK-China School Partnerships programme, funding will also be provided for 60 headteachers to make study visits to China in 2014.

The announcement was welcomed by the British Council and the British Academy, both of which have been pushing for policies to reverse the decline in students taking modern languages at school and university level.

Martin Davidson, the British Council's chief executive who has been visiting China with Cameron, said: "The promotion of Chinese language in the UK and the English language in China are both vital to economic and cultural relations between the two countries. This initiative will increase collaboration and is particularly significant given that recent British Council research shows that Mandarin is one of 10 languages not widely spoken in the UK and yet crucial to our future growth and prosperity."

In recent research the British Council placed Mandarin in the top five most important languages for Britain's future prosperity, security and influence. But it found only 1% of the adult population speaks Mandarin to a level that allows them to conduct a basic conversation. Just 3,000 pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland entered for Chinese languages GCSEs in 2013, putting it far behind the traditional choices of French with 177,000, Spanish with 91,000 and German with 62,000 entrants, as well as Urdu, Polish and Arabic.

But the popularity of Chinese languages improves at A-level, where it was the fourth most popular modern language in 2013, with 3,300 entrants compared with 11,000 taking A-level French and 4,200 taking German.

The estimated 500,000 ethnic Chinese living in Britain make it the largest overseas Chinese population of any European country.

Professor Dame Helen Wallace, the British Academy's foreign secretary, said her organisation had been arguing for an improvement in foreign language skills, and had identified Mandarin as one of the extended range of languages to be promoted in schools.

But a lack of qualified teachers could be a barrier to improving its popularity, Wallace said.

"The supply chain needs to work in both ways. Children need to be persuaded to do it and you need the availability of capable teachers at all levels – primary, secondary and university – to develop positive reinforcement in the availability of teachers and the interest of teachers."

And she warned: "No such strategy works unless you stick at it. There's no use doing this for two or three years and then forgetting about it – you have to make a long-term investment in this kind of change capacity."Laura Chan, one of the co-founders of the Marco Polo Academy, a bilingual Mandarin-English primary school opening in Barnet next September as part of the free schools programme, said the prime minister's announcement was good news for the status of Mandarin.

"It's a great help. It will increase people's awareness of Mandarin as a language they can learn," she said.

"One reason we wanted to set up the free school is that the teaching of language in the UK is not particularly effective, especially for young children."

From September 2014, studying foreign languages will be compulsory in primary schools under the new national curriculum.衆所周知，卡梅倫的法語水平相當一般。但他卻呼籲英國年輕人放棄法語學習，集中精力學習“未來的語言”——漢語。

卡梅倫在結束了爲期三天的訪華行程後表示，英國的年輕人應該打破只關注法德語學習的傳統侷限，今後應集中學習漢語。

爲了更有說服力，卡梅倫還引用了南非前總統曼德拉的名言——“要了解一個國度的精神世界，最好的方法就是學習他們的語言”。卡梅倫表示：“我希望英國能緊跟世界經濟發展的腳步。其中重要的一方面就是讓我們的年青一代學習正在崛起的中國的語言。”

“等到這一代學生走出校門的時候，中國很可能已成爲世界最大的經濟體。所以現在是時候將注意力從傳統的德法語學習轉向漢語學習。”

“正如曼德拉曾說過，‘以對方能聽懂的語言說的話只能進入對方的大腦，以對方的母語說的話才能走入對方的內心’”。

卡梅倫訪問了成都的龍江路小學。他還表示，英國文化委員會和中國漢辦（中國國家漢語國際推廣領導小組辦公室）將會繼續合作伙伴關係，計劃到2016年將英國的漢語助教人數提高一倍，併爲開設漢語教學的英國學校提供資金支持以降低其辦學成本。

卡梅倫表示也將繼續推進與中國學校的合作項目，計劃在2014年公費支持60位中小學校長訪問中國。

卡梅倫的上述聲明受到了英國文化委員會和英國社會科學院的歡迎，這兩個組織都在努力扭轉英國大學和中學學生對現代語言學習逐漸喪失興趣的局面。

同卡梅倫一起訪華的英國文化委員會執行總裁馬丁·戴維森（Martin Davidson）表示：“同時推進中國的英語教學事業和英國的漢語教學事業對於加強兩國的經濟文化聯繫是至關重要的。首相此次的倡議不僅會加強兩國合作，對於英國自己也有重要意義。英國文化委員會的調查顯示，在英國漢語是普及率最低的10種語言之一，但漢語對於英國未來的發展繁榮無疑是十分重要的。”

在英國文化委員會最近的一項研究中，漢語被列爲關乎英國未來繁榮、安全和影響力的最重要語種前五名。但研究發現，只有1%的英國人能夠使用漢語進行基本的日常對話。2013年度英格蘭、威爾士和北愛爾蘭一共只有3000名初中學生報名了GCSE標準中文課程，這遠遠少於選擇其他語言的學生人數。例如，選擇法語的學生有177,000名，選擇西班牙語的有91,000名，選擇德語的有62,200名。除了這些傳統的熱門語言之外，選擇漢語學習的學生人數也少於烏爾都語、波蘭語和阿拉伯語。

不過，學習中文的高中生呈現出增多的趨勢。高中的中文課程是2013年度最熱門的4大現代語言課程之一，共有3300名學生參加。選擇法語課程的高中生有11,000名，選擇德語課程的高中生有4,200名。

目前約有50萬華裔人士居住在英國，這一數字高於歐洲其他國家。

英國社會科學院外事發言人海倫·華萊士（Dame Helen Wallace）教授說：“一直以來，我們都十分贊成提高公民的外語水平，我們已把漢語列爲各大學校應設立學科進行教學的語種之一。”

華萊士補充說：“不過現在缺乏專業的漢語教師，這將會給普及漢語學習帶來一定困難。”

“增加中文教師數量需要雙管齊下。一方面，要說服學生們選擇中文課程；另一方面，需要有能力的教師站上中小學和大學的講臺，證明中文教師的實際價值，吸引更多同行加入。”

華萊士還提醒道：“任何計劃只有堅持才能奏效。推廣漢語學習也一樣，只做個兩三年然後置之不理是沒有用的。改變目前的語言學習狀況需要長期的努力。”明年9月將有一所名爲“馬可波羅學院”的中英雙語小學在巴尼特成立，這所學校也是英國“免費學校”計劃的項目之一。這所學校的創始人之一勞拉·陳（Laura Chan）認爲，首相此次的呼籲對於提高漢語在英國的地位來說是一個好消息。

她說：“這無疑大有幫助。首相的呼籲讓人們意識到漢語也是他們需要學習掌握的語言之一。”

“我們想要建立這所免費學校也是因爲在英國語言教學的成效並不顯著，尤其是對於年紀小的孩子。”

根據最新修訂的國家課程大綱，從2014年9月起，外語學習將成爲英國小學的必修科目。