More ‘Confucius classrooms’ on Auckland’s North Shore

Ten North Shore schools are benefitting from a substantial investment from the Chinese government in NZ’s first ‘Confucius Classrooms’, set up around the world to assist the teaching of the language and culture of China in schools.
Glenfield Intermediate School and Willow Park Primary School are to be the North Shore’s Confucius Classroom ‘hubs’ for two clusters of ten schools who are among the first in NZ to benefit from the Confucius Classroom Programme. 
Late last term Glenfield Intermediate School opened its Confucius classroom which they’ll share with Glenfield College, Glenfield Primary School, Marlborough, Bayview, Windy Ridge and Manuka Primary Schools.
In the same week Willow Park Primary School in Hillcrest on the North Shore unveiled its Confucius Classroom, which will soon allow students to interact with children in sister classrooms in China, in their language, electronically.
Willow Park, an International Baccalaureate candidate school, refers in its charter to second language learning as a “lifelong asset”. After consultation with parents and their community in 2008, they trialed Mandarin the following year, which was well received by pupils and their families.
Currently, pupils in Years three, four and five have a half–hour Mandarin lesson twice a week in a shared arrangement with Northcote Intermediate. With the funds associated with the Confucius Classroom Programme, Willow Park now plans to expand the number of children receiving lessons next year. 
Principal of Willow Park Primary, Jeff Johnstone, says NZ parents are getting on board with their children learning a second language, especilly Mandarin. “We want our kids to have the skills, knowledge, attributes and attitudes that will take them through life...To have a second language, particularly Mandarin, is going to be a feather in their cap.”
With Northcote Intermediate as part of the Willow Park School Confucius Classroom cluster, there is a pathway for Willow Park children to continue their Mandarin at Intermediate level and beyond.
Johnstone says the children enjoy the colourful classes with their NZ–trained teacher. He says the interest and knowledge of another language and culture is a positive that can continue to influence the young NZ’ers right throughout their lives, especially when they get out into the workforce.
Like all language learning, it is “the younger the better” for hearing the tones, mastering basic words and getting their heads and ears around Mandarin says the school.
Johnstone himself lived and taught in Shanghai for two years with his family. When he returned to NZ in 2006, he was surprised to discover his Intermediate-age children could not access any Mandarin here through the school system.
“If we want to give our kids an advantage, they will increasingly need language in the future,” he says. 
He says he would like his students to “visit” China; by using technology to communicate with Chinese school children in their own language.
Gillian Eadie, director of the Confucius Institute based at the University of Auckland, has been instrumental in bringing Confucius Classrooms to NZ.
She says: “Mandarin is acknowledged as a language in growing demand. Our children’s future prosperity, career prospects and professional relationships will become increasingly tied to the region, and the children whose schools have taken up this opportunity through the generosity of the Chinese government will have an important language platform for a truly global future.”