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Teachers Need Help With Asia

Posted on: Wednesday, 1 February 2006, 15:00 CST

By GRAY, Kristi

Many secondary school teachers lack the confidence to include Asian content in their classes, despite a curriculum requirement for them to do so, a new report says.

Although it was generally accepted that teaching Asian studies was important in a time of growing contact with Asia, the report by the Asian New Zealand Foundation found there were still low levels of Asian content in many curriculum areas.

Focus groups reported many teachers lacked confidence and had limited knowledge about the Asian aspects of their subject matter.

Asia New Zealand Foundation schools co-ordinator Janice Chin said results did not vary greatly from those found in a primary- school survey two years ago.

"Teachers want to teach subjects properly and hesitate if they feel they are under-prepared or ill- equipped," Chin said.

"There is obviously a great need for more professional support and collaboration with educational organisations, as well as with the wide community."

The three greatest barriers to inclusion were availability of professional development, the lack of up-to-date resources and assessment commitments, Chin said.

Things motivating teachers to include more Asian content were Asian students in the class, student interest and current events.

A move by the Ministry of Education to ensure that all schools catering for years seven to 10 offer language programmes by 2008 could improve the situation.

Gail Spence, senior language adviser at the ministry, said while all students would not be required to learn a second language, they must be available in the curriculum.

Currently, 95 per cent of secondary schools, 64% of intermediate and 42% of primary schools offered a second language, she said.

Luba Roth, founder of the Christchurch Chinese Language Teachers' Association and head of Chinese at St Margaret's College, said learning the language was the most important way to promote Asian studies.

Culture and the social side of life were taught as part of learning the language, she said.

Many schools at Year 7 had already introduced a programme using tapes to encourage simple use of Chinese language, which was a positive move, Roth said.

"However, there is still a need to have more schools teaching the Chinese language -- in both secondary and primary schools," she said. "We hope that when the learning-languages curriculum comes in, more schools will think about teaching Chinese.

"Currently, we have the teachers available but not enough schools for them to teach in. However, the Christchurch College of Education is now no longer training teachers in Chinese, so there could be a shortage in the future."

A perception Chinese was difficult to learn was a barrier to its introduction, she said. "It is different rather than difficult -- as it requires learning a new alphabet, rather than using the same one as English."

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Source: Press, The; Christchurch, New Zealand

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