Dreams shattered - in any language

Sun Tao's dream has been shattered. After graduating with a Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) qualification from Daqing Normal University in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province in 2009, he was in line for a "well-paying" job in either the United States or Europe.

All he had to do was to sign up with a private employment agency, and pay an upfront fee of 7,830 yuan (854 euros) - and shortly thereafter be offered a job that would pay at least 200,000 yuan a year.

But after months of waiting, the job offer from the agency - in Nanjing, in East China's Jiangsu province - did not materialize.

"The employees who worked there asked me to wait patiently," Sun says. "After a year, they told me I was not qualified for this job. And they refused to return my money.

"What I feel frustrated about is not just the financial loss, but the difficulty of finding a decent job as a Chinese language teacher in Western countries," says Sun. "Isn't it a trend there to study Chinese now?"

Sun's belief is understandable, given the popularization of the Chinese language around the world, pushed by Chinese government. In 1950, courses in teaching Chinese to foreigners started at a few universities in China.

After 2000, the teaching of Chinese went mainly abroad, with the Confucius Institute, established by 11 Chinese ministries and relevant organizations, shouldering the main responsibility.

By the end of 2010, more than 322 Confucius Institutes and 369 Confucius classrooms had been set up in 96 countries.

"The expansion of Confucius Institutes around the world is an efficient way to promote 'soft power'," says Wu Yongyi, director of International College of Chinese Studies at East China Normal University. The university is one of the earliest universities of TCFL education and has co-established six Confucius Institutes in the United States.

"Since the reform and opening-up, China has been pursuing a rapid economic growth as well as an increasingly important role on international stage.

"Besides, the expansion is to meet the surge of studying Chinese in foreign countries. For example, the US government listed Chinese as a critically needed foreign language in the National Security Language Program and funded many programs to spread Chinese and cultivation of native teachers. Our school has many cooperative programs with the US."

Moreover, over the past 10 years, there has been a boom in studying Chinese, with more than 40 million people around the world learning the language. And the reason has changed from curiosity and academic research to practical concerns. In the US, Chinese has become the third-largest language taught, after English and Spanish.

The enrollment of Chinese major students in universities and colleges has increased by 78 percent from 2002 to 2009, data released by Modern Language Association in US shows.

In 2010 Confucius Institutes had about 360,000 students, an increase of 100,000 over 2009, figures from Hanban, the Chinese national office for TCFL and headquarters of the Confucius Institute, show.

And TCFL courses in China are growing in popularity, with more than 15,000 students joining TCFL programs at 285 universities and more than 82 universities setting the Masters of Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages. A total of 38,000 students are studying on campus.

But the boom of TCFL education did not benefit the development of teaching Chinese overseas directly. Among those students, only 10 percent of TCFL graduates have teaching capabilities, Beijing Daily reported, citing from a national seminar of TCFL education held in December 2010.

Yet, international Chinese teachers are in great demand, especially for those who work in primary and middle schools.

"I'm confused about this," Sun says. "Since there are great demand and sufficient supply, why isn't the demands fully met, and the resources not well distributed?"

This is a long-standing problem. Since the start of the 21st century there has been a flood of Chinese media coverage about the embarrassing situation TCFL students are facing at graduation.

Yet, TCFL's development has not slowed, intensifying competition and spawning fraudulent agencies, as experienced by Sun.

Fraudsters promise opportunities of teaching Chinese abroad and then disappear after collecting relatively huge sums.

"I think the problems we are facing can be attributed to two conflicts," says Ma Jianfei, deputy director of Hanban. "First is that the reality doesn't match the expectations of students.

"Although Chinese is becoming more and more popular and foreign schools all need Chinese language teachers, the demands vary in different areas.

"Most of the students are attracted by (the possibility of) working in developed countries, such as the US and in Europe."

However, Ma says, positions there are limited, with more vacancies in developing or undeveloped countries, where most TCFL students show little interest.

And more importantly for the students, salaries are lower. In Indonesia, for example, TCFL graduates may earn only about 60,000 yuan a year.

"The second conflict is the imbalance between TCFL education and demands of foreign schools," Ma says.

"At first, the major goal of TCFL was set to teach foreigners who studied in China. As to teaching Chinese language abroad and carrying out cultural communication and public diplomacy based on Chinese language, we haven't done enough research. Therefore, the students of TCFL can't fully meet the demands of foreign countries."