Ancient Chinese secrets: finding qualified teachers.

As learning Chinese becomes more popular in K-12 schools nationwide, the greatest struggle is finding qualified teachers. "I know of only four colleges of education that actually certify teachers of Chinese in public schools," says Scott McGinnis, of the Defense Language Institute.

The Chinese language push came about 20 years ago, when the Dodge Foundation established 60 programs in schools. But many disappeared due to the difficulty in replacing teachers. Now, the push is back on in part because China is becoming a huge economic force. "Three billion people speak Chinese," adds Michael Bacon, immersion education coordinator for Portland Public Schools.

Portland Public Schools and the Univ. of Oregon received a grant to build a Chinese K-16 Flagship Program, the first model program through the National Security Education Program. It's a Mandarin immersion program including students that learned English first and heritage speakers with some Chinese skills already. Finding qualified and certified teachers is a major challenge.

Five teachers are native Chinese speakers and one is fluent in Chinese and all are transitioning to an American classroom, such as learning that teachers earn respect here and don't automatically get respect, Bacon says.

Over the long term, "we really need to build professional development programs" in college and have schools of education that prepare teachers for teaching the language, MeGinnis says.

In Schools

About 310 Chinese language programs exist in public and private schools, with California and Massachusetts having the highest numbers of programs.