Mandarin to become dominant language in Singapore?

A cacophony of Mandarin and English echo through the streets of Singapore's Chinatown as crowds of shoppers buy joss sticks and fruit as offerings to the spirits during the Seventh Month Ghost Festival.

English has long united the ethnically diverse island-state but Singapore's leaders now foresee a time when Chinese Mandarin will be the country's dominant language and they are aggressively encouraging their people to become fluent in Chinese.

"Both English and Mandarin are important because in different situations you use either language. But Mandarin has become more important," said Chinatown shopkeeper Eng Yee Lay.

Hit hard by the global slowdown, strengthening ties with China has taken on a strategic imperative in Singapore which seeks to leverage the bilingual skills of its ethnic Chinese majority to get a larger slice of China's fast expanding economic pie.

"With the growing importance of China on the world stage, Chinese Singaporeans who are competent in the language and familiar with the culture would have a distinct advantage when working and interacting with Chinese nationals," says Lim Sau Hoong, chairwoman of the Promote Mandarin Council.

The government-sponsored campaign to promote Mandarin began in 1979 to unite under one language Singapore's disparate Chinese communities that spoke a multitude of dialects passed on by their ancestors who came from China in the 19th and early 20th century.

Unifying the Chinese majority in a country with sizeable Malay and Indian minorities was a priority and in the early days the Speak Mandarin Campaign discouraged ethnic Chinese from speaking the dialects that prevailed such as Hokkien.

Now, with a majority of Singaporeans speaking Mandarin in their homes, according to government figures, the focus is on improving fluency in spoken and written Mandarin.

"In two generations, Mandarin will become our mother tongue," said Singapore's first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew at the launch of the 2009 Speak Mandarin Campaign earlier this year.

UTSA hosts Chinese language conference

This weekend, the UTSA College of Education and Human Development, the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies and the East Asia Institute will sponsor the 2009 Annual Conference of the Chinese Language Teachers Association of Texas (CLTA-Texas). The conference, also supported by the Confucius Institute at Texas A&M University and the Education Office of the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Houston, promotes teaching Chinese as a foreign and heritage language in Texas.

The CLTA-Texas conference is open to Chinese language teachers, principals and administrators from public and private high schools, heritage schools and universities in San Antonio and the surrounding areas such as Houston, Dallas and Austin. Leaders from Chinese organizations in San Antonio and Austin and UTSA students also are invited to attend the conference.

This year's conference, themed "Connecting Classroom Teaching to the Real World," will include six panels and 16 presenters -- all teachers, principals and language program coordinators from high schools, heritage Chinese schools, and colleges and universities. Panel topics will range from the establishment and development of Chinese programs to effective K-16 teaching methods.

Claudia Ross, a professor from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., and vice president of CLTA at the national level, will present the keynote address titled "How Long Does it Take to Learn Chinese?" Ross is the author of "Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar" published by Routledge Press.