A little piece of China down Berkshire way

Anthony Seldon, headmaster of Wellington College, at the opening of the school's Mandarin learning center. Cecily Liu / China Daily

The opening of a Mandarin learning center at a British school highlights the headway that teaching of the language is making in Europe

Heritage and tradition have long been defining characteristics of Britain's oldest boarding schools, but one school is now distinguishing itself with its commitment to China and Mandarin learning.

Wellington College, a boarding school in Berkshire, west of London, founded by Queen Victoria in 1859 to educate the sons of soldiers, has opened a Mandarin learning center. The center, which opened this month, is said to be the first of its kind in a British school.

Consisting of two classrooms in a pagoda-inspired building with an external water garden enclosed by Chinese wooden fences, it cost 500,000 pounds (618,600 euros).

In addition to language lessons, Chinese culture and calligraphy lessons will be held in the center, offering students the quintessential Chinese experience.

"It's not just the language. It's about understanding the Chinese way of approaching life," says Anthony Seldon, headmaster of the college, which is now co-educational.

"China is an important country for us to work with in friendship and mutual understanding. We have to prepare young people to understand about China - it's that simple."

The popularity of learning Mandarin has soared in British schools in recent years.

Following an overhaul of the national curriculum for schools in England, primary schools can offer lessons in Mandarin alongside Latin and Greek, as well as French, German and Spanish from September 2014, under new proposals announced two weeks ago by the Education Secretary Michael Gove.

Learning a language will then be compulsory from the age of 7.

In November 2010 Gove announced a pioneering partnership, expected to run over five years, with China to train 1,000 more Mandarin teachers for secondary schools in England.

Mandarin is an increasingly popular subject choice for young people sitting for the General Certificate of Secondary Education, but in England there were only about 100 qualified Mandarin teachers in 2009, Britain's Department for Education says.

Brighton College, an independent college in south eastern England, became the first in Britain to make Mandarin a compulsory subject, in 2006.

"China, the world's biggest and fastest growing country, will become the dominant economy in 10 to 15 years' time," Seldon says.

At Wellington College, about 80 out of its 1,000 students study Mandarin, taught by two in-house teachers, both from China. Each year, the Mandarin-promoting non-profit organization Confucius Institute also sends an assistant teacher to help out.

Six years ago, after becoming headmaster, Seldon, who is well known in Britain for his books on contemporary history, created a splash by introducing "happiness lessons" to the curriculum.

Though the Mandarin center is his idea, he stressed the importance of parents' support and donations to the project.

Seldon recalled that on his first visit to China six years ago a family that had three children at Wellington College said to him: "Wellington must embrace China." He took the advice to heart and came up with the Mandarin center project.

The center was built with its tall pillars, red lanterns and rounded wooden bridge taking shape before visitors' eyes.

"I think it's just exquisite," Seldon says.

And to show that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, he has been sitting inside the classroom alongside students studying Mandarin. He is studying the language at GCSE level, and will sit the exam with college students this summer.

"The fact my students see me study Mandarin and find it difficult will be a source of encouragement for them, and I'm all for that," he says.

Wellington's Mandarin center has already won great praise from education specialists, including Katherine Carruthers, director of the Schools Network Confucius Institute, a Mandarin-learning network run by member schools in Britain.

"The opening of the Mandarin center sends out a strong message about the teaching and learning of Mandarin nationally, and its strategic importance," Carruthers says.

Her sentiments echo those of Liu Xiaoming, China's ambassador to Britain, who praised Seldon's "long and pioneering leadership in British education concerning the study of China".

Liu told the college's students that the center should be used as a window to learn more about China. "I hope through learning Mandarin you will better understand the richness and depth of time-honored Chinese culture. You will also learn more about the warm-hearted Chinese people, who work hard and defy difficulties."

Since Wellington College initiated Mandarin lessons five years ago, the number of pupils studying the language has greatly increased compared with the numbers studying traditional second languages, such as French and German.

The dedicated learning environment has already helped many students make significant progress, including Harry Randal and Nadja Auerbach, who hosted the Mandarin center's opening ceremony speaking fluent Mandarin.

Randal is also a part of the Wellington College team that won the national finals in the secondary school division of the Chinese Bridge language competition in 2010. The team then traveled to Chongqing to represent Britain in the competition's world finals.

"I love China, and I definitely want to work in China," he says.

When he started learning Chinese, enthralled by the challenge of a new language, he had planned to do it for just six months. Three years later, he is still hard at it, and plans to continue his studies at university.

To help students such as Randal better experience Chinese culture, Wellington College sends them to study for at least a term at its campus in Tianjin, which opened last August.

Wellington College International Tianjin is the first overseas campus the school has opened. With Victorian architecture closely resembling its 150-year-old parent school, the Tianjin campus is now home to 260 students.

Eleven students from Britain are now in Tianjin for the exchange program, and they will be joined by six more next month.

The Tianjin campus is expected to expand to accommodate 1,000 students. Wellington College also plans to open two more campuses in Shanghai soon.

Similar to Wellington College, many other prestigious British schools have established campuses in China to take advantage of the country's economic growth and internationalization.

The all-boys Dulwich College in southeast London has set up four China campuses, in Beijing, Suzhou, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Harrow, another all-boys school, in northwest London, opened a Beijing campus in 2005 and plans to open another one in Hong Kong later this year.

In the past two years, 14 private schools have entered pupils for a new exam in Mandarin. By the end of this year, 300 pupils from prep schools across Britain will have gained the Independent School Examination Board's certificate of achievement in the subject.

"I think you can teach the language very well without the Mandarin center," Seldon says. "But when you're in that space, you hear the music and see the sights, you're in a bit of China."

He is keen to share his passion for China with teachers and students from other schools, making the center a regional center for Chinese language and culture teaching.

"Teachers and students will come, and learn why it's important to study Mandarin. It's an incentive; an encouragement, and a reminder, to the study of it."

Contact the writers at cecilyliu@chinadaily.com.cn and zhanghaizhou@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 06/22/2012 page24)