• Startalk, a federally funded program, strives to improve America’s percentage by providing foreign language classes. 125 programs are offered nationwide this year.
• Startalk was created seven years ago by the Department of Defense with the purpose of introducing Americans to foreign languages such as Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, Russian and Portuguese.
• 10 percent of native-born Americans speak a language other than English
• A major obstacle in expanding the program has been a lack of qualified teachers. Because of this, a teacher training program was started in Nevada three years ago specifically to train Chinese language instructors. During the three-year span, 45 teachers have been trained through the program.

Labels: Chinese Schools, Chinese Summer School, Learning Chinese