Chinese language and culture, a new online option is now available from the National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (NOCFL). NOCFL's Confucius Institute Online is attracting avid learners with thousands of interesting audio and video presentations on Chinese language and culture. The site abounds with mandarin materials and a full array of professional resources and information.

Set up and maintained by NOCFL, www.chinese.cn/en also serves as an interactive platform with forums, blogs and spaces for photos. The website comes after a steady growth in the number of Chinese language learners. As of last month, there were as many as 280 Confucius Institutes in 87 countries with a total of 40 millions overseas learners, according to NOCFL.