More Students Studying Mandarin Chinese As Second Language

Skyline High School may not be too far a cry from the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong, China’s skyline.

In Idaho Falls, there’s a growing set of students, however small, finding their own way online to study Mandarin Chinese.

Shane Riley is a junior at Skyline. He has his sights on a career in international business someday, and that’s where the Mandarin comes fits in, he said.

“It would be really useful if you wanted to get a job with anything in business sometime later in life,” said Riley.

Shane isn’t alone. There’s a small, but growing number of kindergarten through 12th grade students across the U.S. with the same idea.

During the 2007 to 2008 school year, 8.9 million public school students were enrolled in a second language.

Only about 60,000 of those students were studying Mandarin Chinese.

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages said that number has tripled over recent years.

At Bonneville District 91, three students are using their own time, and paying up $75 for the semester to study Mandarin Chinese at home for school credit.

“I just want to visit China someday and I think that having the language would just be a fun reason to visit and go enjoy their culture,” said Rhett Backstrom, also a Skyline High School junior.

Backstrom completed an online course in Mandarin over the summer.

Skyline counselor Ty Steppen says over the past couple of years, interest in the courses provided by online school Idaho Digital Learning Academy have gone from non-existent to a glimmer.

“I hadn’t seen anything before the last two years,” said Steppen. “And we’ve had four since, so I guess you could say that’s an increase.”

It could be the beginning of something much bigger. At nearly 900 million speakers, Mandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world.