Several Thoughts On Current Chinese Education in The Philippines
Several Thoughts On Current Chinese Education in The Philippines
Abstract. There is an extremely long contact history between China and the Philippines. Although
Philippine people are more and more interested in learning Chinese and the quality of Chinese
education in the Philippines remains to be improved, the friction between Chinese and Philippine
government, “Philippine” education system of Philippine government, and complicated
multi-language environment are all reasons which results in not optimistic status of Chinese
education. Those problems have seriously hindered the further development of Chinese education in
the Philippines. Based on above problems, this paper proposes corresponding countermeasures for
the purpose of promoting Chinese education to realize reasonable, rich, and occupational
development.
I. Introduction
The non-governmental exchange between Chinese and Philippine people has a long history. In
1899, the 1st school for overseas Chinese – Da Qing Zhong Xi Xue Tang was established, which
marked the beginning of Chinese education in the Philippines. After 1990s, with China’s overall
rapid rising and Chinese government’s great support for popularizing overseas Chinese, the wave of
learning Chinese sweeps across the global. This also causes great influence on Philippine Chinese
education and also causes many new changes compared with previous Chinese education.
Meanwhile, some new problems which hinder the development of Chinese education also appear.
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uniform teaching quality assessment on Chinese courses, which is disadvantageous for testing
teaching effect and balancing advantages and disadvantages of Chinese schools.
However, in terms of teaching way, due to complex structure of Chinese teaching staff, the
teachers’ teaching way, teaching level, and teaching effect are all different. Some high-level
teachers with rich experience can quickly bring students into Chinese world and realize quick
growth of students’ Chinese level. However, as for some teachers with insufficient teaching
experience, due to lack of professional training of language teaching, they still use traditional
teaching way in Chinese Mainland and regard overseas Chinese students in the Philippines as
Chinese mother-tongue students for teaching, thus resulting in the situation that the teachers talk too
much, but the students practice little; the teaching is dull, and the learning and practice is detached;
there is more mechanical memorizing than flexible use. The phenomenon of “dumb Chinese”
becomes a new difficulty which perplex Chinese educators.
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IV. Conclusion
The Philippines is a country of islands, and also a multinational country with open mind.
Through a general survey of about 100-year development process of Philippine Chinese education,
although there is fluctuation, the Chinese education still keeps forward under the joint efforts of
Philippine Chinese people and Philippine Chinese associations. It is certain that there still exist
different problems in construction of Chinese schools; however, with comprehensive
implementation of Chinese education reform, it is believed that all problems will be solved in
practice and development process. In a world, the Philippine Chinese education has a good
development prospect.
References
[1] Shao Jianyin: Past, Present and Future of Chinese Education in the Philippines, [J], Taiwan:
Chinese World (issue 72 of Taiwan Southeast Asian Chinese Education magazine), 1994, 81.
[2] Liao Xinling: Research on Development Status and Trend of Chinese Education in Southeast
Asia [J], Overseas Chinese Journal of Bagui, 2009 (1), 55.
[3] Baibu Baike, Phippine Chinese http://baike.baidu.com/view/490873.htm?fr=aladdin
[4] Luo Qingming: Reference Problems in Philippine Chinese Teaching [J], Overseas Chinese
Journal of Bagui, 1996 (3), 48-52.
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