The country is producing more qualified teachers and developing innovative learning tools to meet the booming demand for Chinese language proficiency worldwide.

Currently more than 40 million foreigners are learning Chinese and that number is expected to grow to about 100 million by 2010, according to the office of Chinese Language Council International (CLCI).

A Chinese language learning website, www.lnyabc.com, was launched yesterday to provide 10 interactive learning platforms between standard Chinese and 10 foreign languages.

"The platforms provide a simple and practical way to learn Chinese," said Yang Chunhong, director of Lanya Network Co which created the learning method.

Learners only need to remember 354 basic words and 595 classified words and then practice them combining common sentences in daily life covering the fields of traffic, accommodation, catering, shopping, entertainment, tourism, sports and trade, Yang said.

For many beginners, Chinese can be an overwhelming language.

"Many foreigners often flinch at learning to write Chinese characters and some of them spend a lot of time and money to remember a lot of words before opening their mouth to speak," said Xing Bisi, a professor with the Chinese Cultural Link Project Committee affiliated to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

"This learning method ensures a foreigner speaks Chinese before learning how to write. He can start learning Chinese from some 500 common sentences the platforms provide."

There are more than 120 Confucius Institutes across the world engaged in teaching Chinese as a foreign language, Jiang Yandong, an official with CLCI, said.

However, there is a big shortage of qualified teachers.

The United States' College Board is going to offer an advanced placement course in Chinese this year, which means more than 2,000 high schools in the United States will need Chinese teachers in the near future.

To meet the expected demand, the office has trained and recruited thousands of volunteer Chinese language teachers since the end of last year.

Most of them are high school teachers and undergraduates or graduate students.

The Beijing Language and Culture University is feeding the demand for qualified Chinese language teachers, both in the country and abroad, with its intensive teaching program run through its College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Many of its young Chinese graduates, who are fluent in English, hope to teach foreigners their first second language.

The deputy director of the university's English Education Center, Liang Qing, said the Olympics was a big door opener for many foreigners wanting to get a foothold in China, but language skills were the key.

(China Daily 06/13/2007 page1)