“The training program in Beijing is a mutual learning process. I decided to register at university for Chinese learning after that. Maybe the MLA at my school will help me with my homework.” Sue Clement, Principal of Te Aro School in Wellington said to the reporter.

Recently, the 48 Mandarin Language Assistants (MLAs) who had taken the training program run by Sue Clement in Beijing have all arrived in Wellington. They will go to 112 schools (including primary schools and secondary schools) in the North Island of New Zealand, organised by the Confucius Institute at Victoria University of Wellington (CI VUW). The MLAs will help schools and local teachers teach Chinese. On 15 February, the Welcome Reception was held for the MLAs of 2016 by CI VUW.

Ms Clement told the reporter that she and her colleague held a three-day programme for the MLAs in Beijing. During the programme they introduced some do’s and don’ts when teaching in New Zealand schools and the New Zealand Curriculum and Assessment System. They also described some situations that could happen in the classroom. During the training program the MLAs learned the meanings of some Kiwi English slang and Maori culture.

Ms Clement said that her experience in China made her feel the same way that MLAs would do in New Zealand. She felt the anxiety of being in a strange environment. More importantly she decided to learn Chinese. As a principal whose school offers Chinese classes, Ms Clement had thought from the very beginning that it was necessary for her to improve her Chinese. She was planning to learn Chinese at her school but was always too busy to start. When she came back from Beijing, she finally determined to learn Chinese on weekends at Victoria University.

Te Aro School has been offering Chinese courses for seven years. Around 250 students currently learn Chinese. Ms Clement said that last year’s MLA at her school, He Yue, hugely enriched Chinese teaching. Every Tuesday lunchtimes, Yue helped students understand Chinese culture through paper-cutting, Chinese dance, and Chinese Kungfu. Sue expected that the new MLA would also surprise them.

Ms Clement said that there were many Chinese migrants in New Zealand, and the number of Chinese students was also increasing. The strong bonds between New Zealand and Asian countries and the realization of the importance of learning Chinese had made Chinese teaching popular. Tony Browne, former ambassador to China and CI VUW Advisory Board Chairman, said at the Welcome Reception on 15 February: “Chinese has become one of the most important foreign languages in New Zealand. Our plan is to introduce Chinese to more New Zealand schools. The MLAs will be helpful for a mutual understanding between New Zealand and China.”

The Confucius Institute at Victoria University of Wellington received one of the 2015 Global Top 20 Confucius Institutes awards at the 10^th Confucius Institute Conference last year. Wen Powles, Director of CI VUW, told us that the 48 MLAs of 2016 were from 16 different universities in China, and this year the number of MLAs had been the highest since the scheme began.

Sun Yunpeng, Second Secretary of Education Section of Chinese Embassy, said that in recent years Chinese teaching and learning had gained remarkable success in New Zealand. In 2015 New Zealand university students Mai Kaiping (Bradley Meredith) and Ni Dongmou (Tom Nicholls) respectively won the Global Champion and the First Prize of the Chinese Bridge Speech Competition. Their success is the outcome of support from all of society, including the Mandarin Language Assistants from China.

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