China has “great demand” for Spanish teachers due to the increase in students in the country

Eduardo González The “greatest challenge” facing the teaching of Spanish in China is finding “qualified” teachers for it given the boom in student enrollment in recent years. This is one of the main conclusions of the new edition of the Tribune of Hispanism, held last Tuesday at the headquarters of the Instituto Cervantes in Madrid and in which prominent Chinese Hispanists participated such as Lu Jingsheng, from the Shanghai University of International Studies; Lu Yun, from Zhejiang University; and Fan Ye, from Peking University, together with Inmaculada González Puy, director of the Instituto Cervantes in Shanghai, according to the Spanish cultural diplomacy institution in a press release. The twentieth edition of this forum, which brings together international experts who analyse and disseminate Hispanic studies in different countries and areas of the world, was previously presented by the general secretary of the Instituto Cervantes, Carmen Noguero, and the ambassador of the People's Republic of China in Spain, Yao Jing. During the event, the ambassador recalled that, after the recent inauguration of the Cervantes Institute in Shanghai, the Chinese Government is determined to “give the greatest possible support” to the institution to develop its work in this country. “The Spanish language is a language that is developing and is becoming increasingly important in the world,” he said. “In fact, although the Chinese language is spoken by more people, Spanish is spread in more countries,” he acknowledged. According to Yao, Spain is one of the largest tourist destinations for Chinese citizens and it is estimated that more than a million visitors will travel to our country this year. This tourist attraction is one of the reasons for the boom in Spanish and, therefore, Dr. Lu Yun stressed the "great demand" for teachers that has arisen in recent years. In this regard, Lu stated that the estimated ratio of students per teacher in the Asian country should not exceed thirteen in the university field. However, for the more than 20,000 students of Hispanic philology counted in China there are only a total of 882 teachers, when, according to the Hispanist, about 1,423 teachers would be needed.

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