演讲人：潘维廉

潘维廉（William Brown），厦门大学美籍教授，工商管理教育中心外国专家，世界汉语教学学会理事，教育部中外语言交流合作中心顾问委员会荣誉顾问，新航道《用英语讲中国故事》形象大使。荣获2019年度感动中国十大人物、第六届福建省道德模范、中国外文局“国际图书特殊贡献奖”、中国国家外国专家局“友谊奖”、福建省“优秀外国专家荣誉称号”、厦门大学“南强杰出贡献奖”、厦门大学“高等教育教学成果奖”等多项荣誉和奖项。

讲座内容：

Until I was 20, like most Americans I had no interest in China and my second language was Spanish. When I finally moved to Xiamen University in1988, I was told that 32 was too old to learn a second language—especially the world’s most difficult second language.

Fortunately for me, as research has shown from at least the 1960s, adults can learn a second language as well as children—a fact which should help us recruit and motivate adult language learners.

Today, 3 decades later, a knowledge of Chinese is more useful than ever today. Chinese is the world’s most spoken language, one of the top two business languages, and even the 3rd most spoken language in the U.S.. Yet Mandarin still ranks only #7 of the top 10 foreign languages studied in the U.S. Spanish and French remain #1 and #2, even though China today is far more influential than the tongues of two former colonial powers, and the only language like to join English as a global language.

The barriers to promoting Chinese are cultural, historical, political, economic, pedagogical, etc. We will overview:

1. Why the world needs to learn Chinese (this helps us recruit)

2. What are barriers to promoting Chinese

3. How can we overcome these barriers?

Although Chinese is the world’s most spoken language, for it to become a truly global language we must improve not only how we teach Chinese but also how we sell Chinese.