WINFIELD -- Putnam County Schools was selected to host a native Mandarin-speaking teacher for the 2009-10 school year as part of the Chinese Guest Teacher Program.

Guanya Chen is among 93 newly-arrived teachers, bringing the total number currently placed at elementary, middle and high schools across the U.S. to 139.

Winfield Middle School welcomed Chen on August 21, and she began teaching Chinese culture and language for seventh and eighth grade students. This is her second year in Putnam County Schools.

Chen is from Zhengzhou, a capital city of Henan Province, in the middle of China. She is an associate professor of foreign languages at Zhengzhou University. Her husband, Jianxin Ning, is also a professor, teaching in business school at the university. He is trying to find a chance to visit his wife some time next year in Winfield.

Their son, Hao Ning, is a senior in the Electrical Engineering School at Zhengzhou University. Prior to their selection, guest teachers underwent a rigorous screening process and were interviewed by a collaborative team from the College Board and NCSSFL (National Council of State Supervisors for Languages).

Before arriving in their local communities, guest teachers participated in pre-departure orientation in Beijing and professional development training at Stanford University to prepare them for their teaching responsibilities in the United States.

The Chinese Guest Teacher Program is sponsored by Hanban/Confucius Institute Headquarters, in partnership with the College Board. Now in its fourth year, the Chinese Guest Teacher Program is the largest K-12 Chinese guest teacher program in the U.S., and has over time brought more than 325 Chinese teachers to the American schools to teach language and culture.

The program represents a unique opportunity for students and educators to learn Chinese and learn about China from a native speaker. In addition, guest teachers assist with curriculum development, student recruitment, and materials development and serve as a cultural resource for other subject areas and for cultural enrichment activities. This is the second year in which Putnam County has participated in the Chinese language program. Chen taught Chinese language and culture at both Winfield Middle School and Winfield High School during the 2008-09 school year.

This Program is made possible through a partnership between the College Board and Hanban (Office of Chinese Language Council International) in China. Established by the Chinese government in 1987, Hanban is the nation's official agency authorized to promote Chinese language and culture internationally, fulfilling a function similar to that of the UK's British Council and France's Alliance Francaise.

In addition to its partnership with Hanban, the College Board collaborates with NCSSFL (National Council of State Supervisors for Languages) to review applications, interview, select and train the guest teachers. The Institute of International Education serves as the J-1 visa sponsor for guest teachers in the Program.

The guest teachers will work at the school for one school year, and then renew for up to an additional two years if both the school and teacher are satisfied. The Chinese Guest Teacher Program seeks to address the shortage of qualified Chinese teachers in the U.S. and meet the growing interest in Chinese among American K-12 students.

"We are very excited to be able to offer Chinese to our students," said Tom Tull, middle school director for Putnam County Schools. "There are several benefits for doing so: Our students are expanding their understanding of their world, they are able to compare our culture to the Chinese culture and learn to appreciate the best things in both cultures, and having a highly interesting class motivates our students to learn more. This experience may be a springboard for some students to aspire to occupations that they never would have considered previously. And they are learning that learning is fun."

"We are pleased to enable even more American students to learn the Chinese language, discover the vibrant culture of China, and participate more fully in the cultural exchange between our two countries," said College Board President Gaston Caperton.

In an Advanced Placement Program (AP) survey conducted in 2004, nearly 2,400 high schools expressed an interest in offering the AP Chinese course in 2006-07, but for many of these schools, this goal may go unrealized. They either are understaffed or have no teacher of Chinese, and many see no prospect of finding the teachers necessary to build their programs. This increasingly common predicament underscores the shortage of qualified teachers of Chinese in the United States.

Chinese is the most widely spoken first language in the world. It is the national language of the more than 1.3 billion inhabitants of China and millions more ethnic Chinese around the globe.