(eWebWire.com) January 22, 2010 — WORLD WIDE WEB, January 22, 2010 (FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE) — To dramatically boost the number of Americans learning, speaking, and teaching critical foreign languages. A Bill introduced the US $114 million (S$158 million) National Security Language Initiative in January 2006 to expand programmes from kindergarten to university.

The US Department of Education’s Foreign Language Assistance Programme has allocated millions in funding to schools wishing to start, beef up and innovate on Chinese language instruction.

Seeing the upsurge in interest as an opportunity to expand its soft power, China’s National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (also known as Hanban) has also been active in the promotion of Chinese language learning in the US.

It has, for example, teamed up with the US College Board – which administers university entrance exams, the SAT and Advanced Placement exams – to recruit teachers from China to start new Chinese language programmes or teach existing ones in US schools.