An Investigation On The Status Quo Of Mandarin Chinese Language Promotion In Vientiane-Laos

With the improvement of China’s political and economic status in the world, more and more people are learning the language of Chinese. In many countries, Chinese language teaching is developing. Laos has a certain basis in Chinese language teaching; especially its capital city-Vientiane-have won greater achievements in this field, but there are also some problems. The current studies of Chinese language teaching in Laos have got some fulfillments, but they are not comprehensive and concrete. To this end, the author, in order to gain a better understanding of today’s Chinese language promotion in Laos and where it would go, attempts to comprehensively learn about Chinese language teaching in Vientiane through an extensive investigation. Also, By carefully analyzing instructors of Chinese language teaching and learners, the author hopes to find out existing problems in the process of teaching Chinese in Vientiane and to provide with some feasible counter-measures. Moreover, throughout studies in teaching organizations, teachers, their teaching, teaching material and Chinese language learners in Vientiane, the author would like to help people engaged in Chinese language education, especially those in Vientiane, to gain a better understanding of current Chinese language education in Vientiane,and give them suggestions.The usage of questionnaire is adopted. After the results are returned and analyzed, it can be found that there are lots of problems in Vientiane’s Chinese language teaching. First is about the teachers. There are no sufficient Chinese language teachers in Vientiane; those with rich experience are typically rare. A majority of these teachers holds a bachelor degree, while just a small part of them holds a master degree. Second is about organizing teaching activities: old teaching methods, not enough teacher-student communication or after-class activities. Only a minority of students is accessible to activities such as Chinese Corner, Chinese chess and Chinese painting. Third is about Chinese culture. Most learners do not know much about Chinese culture. Fourth is about teaching materials. In-used materials cannot meet the need of Lao students in different levels. Common material is seldom used and there are not many newly-edited material which keeps pace with the learner’s actual capability. Furthermore, assigned teaching material is limited and some organizations just use the copies. Also, multimedia auxiliary teaching materials and teaching equipments are not enough.To solve these problems, the author supplies some feasible suggestions:recruit and train more qualified Chinese language teachers; write Chinese language textbooks for Lao students as soon as possible and simultaneously buy or provide them with plenty of Chinese language textbooks; Government should continute to pay attention to Chinese teaching, and strengthen cooperation in running schools and cultural exchanges with China, and supplies enough teaching materials and teaching equipments.