Nowadays more and more people choose to learn Mandarin in China. In addition to this, overseas schools and governments are holding Mandarin language programs to help people who are interested in Chinese to learn Chinese language. For example, in Kazakhstan there are 10 universities have had the Mandarin language programs, among these 10 universities teaching of National University of Kazakhstan and Kazakhstan Foreign Studies University is the most strong. These two universities specially set Chinese degree, hire two Chinese Han nationality teachers and have the largest student population.
The National University of Kazakhstan is the earliest one that starts teaching Chinese and Mandarin language program and has been teaching Chinese for more than 20 years. Now most of the local Chinese teachers in Kazakhstan all graduated from this university. Its Oriental Faculty has more than 20 Chinese teachers so far. Since 1992, it has built up cooperative relationship with 8 universities in China and sent students and teachers to the cooperative universities to take part in the Mandarin language program to progress and improve. In April, 2002, with the support of Chinese National Hanban, Chinese Lanzhou University established the first Chinese center of Kazakhstan jointly with this university and started a Mandarin language program. In 2005, this center was classified in the series of Confucius Institute. And so far the two Chinese teaching units owned by this university, one focuses on education with record of formal schooling and the other concentrates on language training. These two units collaborate with each other, work hard and become the leader of Chinese teaching in Alma-Ata area.
The Kazakhstan Foreign Studies University in Alma-Ata area has had 12 years’ Chinese teaching history. Since 1999 it set Chinese degree, it has had Chinese language and Literature, Chinese History and Translation which are related to Chinese, among which the Translation is the only one that specially trains Chinese simultaneous translation. Nowadays, students majoring in Chinese are 480 in total and more than 1000 students choose Chinese as the selective course and most of them take part in Mandarin language program. Teachers which specially teach Chinese are 23. These teachers all work hard. In 2008 the 7th Chinese Bridge Preliminary in Kazakhstan, the author witnessed the enthusiasm of this university on Chinese teaching and Mandarin language program. As a foreign studies university, it emphasizes and has experience on language teaching. The Chinese courses are the most reasonable as the author has known.
Although the European and Asian University that the author stays locates at the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, the history that the capital moved here is only 10 years long and the development of this city is not as good as the old one—–Alma-Ata. In addition to this, here is farther to China and closer to Russia, therefore the influence of China is not that strong and less Chinese Han people live here. Local people know less about China than people in south of the country. These backgrounds cause the situation that the Chinese teaching level is lower than the Alma-Ata area and the Mandarin language program couldn’t be started. There used to have only 20-30 students in Chinese Faculty every other year. In 2003, it even stopped enrolling new students. Today there are more than 200 students choose Chinese as the second language vary from International Relation Faculty and International News Faculty. In 2007, the establishment of Confucius Institute in European and Asian University brought new livelihood of Chinese teaching for this university. Many students who want to take part in the Mandarin language program and even learn Mandarin in China come to Confucius Institute to learn Chinese in their spare time. As the expansion of the Confucius Institute’s influence, attitude of the university on Chinese teaching changes.
As the communication between China and Kazakhstan develops deeply, Chinese fever has been spreading from the south of the country to the north part. There will be more and more universities in Kazakhstan starting Chinese teaching and more students will choose to learn Chinese in the future.