High Schools to Offer AP Chinese Classes

As a teacher of Chinese language courses at Mark Keppel High School in Alhambra, Peter Ye said he constantly gets this question from parents and students:

When will there be an Advanced Placement course and exam for high school students interested in earning college credit -- and a likely boost to their admission prospects -- in Chinese?

On Friday, he had an answer. The College Board, which administers the Advanced Placement program, and the People’s Republic of China announced their intention to create an AP course and examination in Chinese language and culture over the next two years.

“My students are going to be very excited,” Ye said. “They have been for this for a long time, and their parents too.”

The Chinese government will help pay for development of the course, although details of the arrangement are yet to be worked out. College Board officials expect to start offering the course in the fall of 2006, with the first exam in the spring of 2007. The course and the exam, still to be developed, will assess reading, writing and the speaking of Mandarin, the official dialect of the People’s Republic of China.

At a Washington, D.C., news conference with two representatives of the Chinese government, College Board President Gaston Caperton said the addition would help the American education system prepare its increasingly culturally diverse students to live and work in a global economy.

“It is our hope that this partnership will become an educational bridge to China, a country whose political, cultural and economic impact on the Asia-Pacific region -- and the world -- is paramount,” Caperton said.

College Board officials noted that a majority of students in China study English, while fewer than 50,000 American high school students take Chinese.

Several Los Angeles-area high schools offer Chinese language courses, most notably in the San Gabriel Valley, which has a large Chinese American population. Keppel High, for example, has 11 classes taught by two full-time instructors. It would probably add more if it had more teachers, said Scott Mangrum, assistant principal for instruction and curriculum.

Mangrum expects the addition of an AP program to further increase interest in the already-full Chinese classes at the school, where 70% of students are of Asian descent. Many are Chinese Americans.

“A big part of the culture at this school are the AP courses,” Mangrum said, adding that Keppel students took nearly 800 AP exams last spring.

Ye, one of the two Chinese-language teachers, said students are often torn between wanting to take a fourth year of Chinese and as many AP courses as possible. The AP courses and exams enable high school students to earn college credits, and they also weigh heavily in college admissions decisions.

Becky Ung, who is completing six years on the San Marino Unified School District Board of Education, also welcomed the news. “This is a very good move,” Ung said of the AP addition. “It shows there is an understanding of the importance of Chinese language and culture in the world, and it will help expose students to the richness of Chinese culture and history.”

Other Chinese Americans in the area welcomed the news as well.

Chunsheng Bai, a professor of intercultural communication at Cal State L.A., called the addition “a win-win solution for all, and the biggest winners are the people of the United States and China.”

Bai said the addition shows the College Board is aware of the growing interactions between the United States and China.

“This foresight will not only prepare our students to become conversant in a language spoken by 1.3 billion people, but also will provide the much-needed training for future professionals who can engage China with knowledge, understanding and cultural empathy,” Bai said.

The College Board offers AP programs in 34 subjects, including French, German and Spanish. It plans to add Italian, Japanese and Russian, as well as Chinese.

Last spring, more than 1 million high school students each took at least one AP course.