Chinese: a new Esperanto for the minority languages of Europe? (2)

Flemings have a strong reputation for languages. From primary school pupils study French as compulsory second language. In secondary school, English and German are taught as third and fourth languages. Many pupils in secondary schools also take Latin and classical Greek. Belgian law allows schools to add even more languages to the secondary school curriculum including the languages of all 23 member states of the EU, Russian, Hindi,… Chinese was not yet on this list but has recently been added. One would think that secondary schools massively turn to Chinese as the language of the future. The truth is that since the introduction of Chinese few schools in Belgium have embraced Chinese. It might be that the polyglottism of the Belgians rather than making the Belgians rush to Chinese is an obstacle to the spread of Chinese. It is more of an exciting thing to discover Chinese if you grew up in a virtually monolingual environment and the only language you have been taught at school is say English or French. If you have five languages already Chinese is much less a novelty. In the end, Chinese undoubtedly will find its way to the hearts and the heads of young Belgians as well, but that will take time and work.

Once every year Hanban convokes a meeting of European Confucius Institutes. These annual meetings are attended by directors of local Confucius Institutes and leaders of Hanban Headquarters and constitute Hanban's most direct way to instruct Confucius Institutes of its latest policies. It is also an occasion to learn about "best practices" and for "excellent" Confucius Institutes to share their experience with Confucius Institutes that are still trying to establish themselves.

At the latest meeting of Confucius Institutes (in Dublin) the Vienna Confucius Institute reported on the way it had organised the Chinese Language Day (汉语日) in September 2013. The idea of a holding Chinese Language Day was launched during prime minister Li Keqiang's visit to Germany in May 2013, on which occasion he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the "Chinese-German Language Year 2013/2014" (Chinesisch-Deutsches Sprachesjahr 2013/2014).

Best practices" among the U.K. Confucius Institutes were represented by the "Confucius Institute for Schools" affiliated with the School of Education (University of London). In the past few years the Confucius Institute has set up an impressive network of Confucius classrooms at secondary schools throughout the country. The network reflects carefully designed strategy to spread Chinese language by supporting local teachers and strengthening whatever Chinese teaching already exists.

In France similar positive results were obtained as far as the spread of Chinese language is concerned. Chinese has become an integral part of the secondary school curriculum. Official teaching plans were promulgated by the French ministry of education, local teaching materials were developed and an "inspector" just for Chinese in secondary schools appointed.