英伦富裕阶层缘何热衷英汉双语教学

英伦富裕阶层缘何热衷英汉双语教学？Inside the UK’s first bilingual English and Chinese primary school来源：FT中文网2017-10-10 06:24As a girl growing up in an English-speaking household in Singapore, Prema Gurunathan grudgingly studied Mandarin. Now a mother in west London, she is taking no chances with her own son. 作为在新加坡一个讲英语家庭长大的女孩，普雷玛•古鲁纳坦(Prema Gurunathan)当年不情愿地学会了普通话。

如今，生活在伦敦西部、已为人母的她，正想方设法让自己的儿子学习普通话。

When he turned one Ms Gurunathan insisted their household in Hammersmith speak Mandarin for half of each week. She recruited an au pair from the east Asia (she prefers not to say exactly where, for fear of tipping off the competition). And last month, she and her husband enrolled the three-and-a-half year-old at Kensington Wade, a newly opened London school that promises full Mandarin immersion for its pupils. 当儿子咿呀学语的时候，古鲁纳坦坚持他们位于汉莫史密斯(Hammersmith)的家每周一半时间讲普通话。

她收了一名来自东亚的互惠生（她不想说具体来自哪个国家，因为担心让竞争对手知道这个信息）。

上月，她和丈夫把自己三岁半的孩子送到了伦敦新设立的一所承诺给学生提供完全浸入式普通话教学的学校——肯辛顿伟德(Kensington Wade)。

“It’s intellectual, it’s cultural and it’s ‘future-proofing’, if you will,”said Ms Gurunathan, a self-confessed “tiger mom”and policy wonk, explaining her school choice. “And it’s fun.”“它开发智力，教文化，还能‘保障前途’，可以这么说，”自认为是“虎妈”和政策专家的古鲁纳坦在解释为何选择这所学校时说，“还很好玩。

”Sir Martin Sorrell, the Sinophile chief executive of the advertising conglomerate WPP, was at Kensington Wade on a recent evening, for a reception to celebrate the Chinese mid-autumn festival. 广告集团WPP对华友好的首席执行官苏铭天爵士(Sir Martin Sorrell)最近在肯辛顿伟德学校出席了庆祝中国中秋节的招待会。

“Chinese and [computer] code —those are the two languages as far as I’m concerned!”Sir Martin declared, offering assurance to the gaggle of parents that the £17,000 tuition they had shelled out for Kensington Wade was money well spent. “中文和（计算机）代码——是我最关心的两种语言！”苏铭天爵士宣称，他向在座的学生家长保证，他们支付给肯辛顿伟德学校的1.7万英镑学费花得值。

A craze for Mandarin, largely confined to affluent families in London, seems at odds with Britain’s pastime of convincing others to learn its tongue. Still, it moved into full swing under the previous Conservative government when George Osborne, the then chancellor, offered primary schools £10m to introduce classes. 对普通话的热衷——主要限于伦敦富裕家庭——似乎与英国人劝说他人学习英语的传统格格不入。

不过，这股热潮在前一届保守党政府时期达到了全盛，当时，时任财政大臣乔治•奥斯本(George Osborne)为英国小学引进中文课程提供了1000万英镑。

For those parents inclined to start their children early, there is Hatching Dragons, the UK’s first Mandarin-English nursery. It claims t o “foster fluency” in both languages by age five, and has just opened a second London location with a third soon to follow. 对那些倾向于让孩子尽早开始学习中文的父母来说，可以选择Hatching Dragons——英国首家中英双语托儿所。

该托儿所宣称让幼儿到五岁时达到双语流利，且刚刚在伦敦开设了第二家，马上还将开设第三家。

“I’ve got enough eviden ce that if a child joins us at six months and stays until they are five, 50 hours a week, they will be orally fluent,” said Cennydd John, who founded Hatching Dragons in 2015, after the birth of his son. If you doubt him, says Mr John, go check his YouTube videos. “我有足够的证据证明，如果一个六个月大的孩子来到我们这里，一周50小时，一直待到5岁，他们的口语将很流利，”2015年（自己的儿子出生后）创立Hatching Dragons 的肯尼德•约翰(Cennydd John)说。

如果你不相信，可以去看看YouTube上的视频，约翰说。

In the US, there are now a few hundred schools offering immersive Mandarin education, not only on th e coasts but also in places like Kansas and Nebraska. This year’s National Chinese Language Conference drew more than 1,200 teachers and other attendees to Houston to compare notes. 美国如今有几百所提供浸入式普通话教育的学校，而且不仅仅分布在沿海地区，在堪萨斯、内布拉斯加等内陆州也有。

今年的“全美中文大会”(NCLC)吸引了1200多名教师及其他与会者到休斯敦交流经验。

“Chinese is the emerging language because China is emerging as a political and economic power,” said Antonella Sorace, a linguistics professor who founded the Bilingualism Matters centre at the University of Edinburgh. “It’s r egarded as a good investment.”“中文是一门新兴语言，因为中国正崛起为一个政治经济大国，”语言学教授安东内拉•索拉切(Antonella Sorace)说，“学习中文被视为一项不错的投资。

”索拉切教授创立了爱丁堡大学(University of Edinburgh)“双语研究中心”(Bilingualism Matters)。

Or, as Ms Gurunathan said: “A lot of Chinese people will be speaking brilliant English [in the future], but it gets you through the door.”或者，如古鲁纳坦所言：“（未来）很多中国人将说着很棒的英语，但中文是一块敲门砖。

”The brainchild of Professor Hugo de Burgh, a specialist in Chinese media, Kensington Wade has been years in the making —not least because of the challenge of finding property in west London. 肯辛顿伟德学校是研究中国传媒的专家戴雨果(Hugo de Burgh)教授的创意，该校筹备多年才正式开校，原因主要在于难以在西伦敦找到校舍。

It is named after Sir Thomas Wade, a 19th century British diplomat who produced one of the first English-Mandarin textbooks. Its inaugural class of 15 students arrived last month. Three were fluent Mandarin speakers while about half had no Mandarin. They were shepherded by parents from the US, South America, Russia, Europe and Great Britain. 该校以19世纪英国外交官托马斯•韦德爵士(Sir Thomas Wade)的名字命名。