ST. LOUIS, the United States, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese School Association in the United States (CSAUS) kicked off its 12th annual convention on Saturday here in the Midwestern U.S. state of Missouri, with over 500 representatives from hundreds of member schools attending.

"In the last 20 some years, Chinese education as a heritage language has seen tremendous momentum in North America, all thanks to the hard work of dedicated educators like all of you here," Liu Shen, president of CSAUS, said at the opening ceremony of the two-day convention.

Liu said that in the recent years, Chinese language education in the United States entered a new era defined by more diversification and healthier growth.

"Chinese language education among overseas learners is with our cultural roots, and is of great practical significance for education, employment, and commerce," Liu said.

Addressing the convention, Minister Xu Xueyuan, the Chinese Embassy in the United States, sang high praise for the association.

"CSAUS plays an important role in spreading the Chinese culture and bridging the Chinese and American people over the years. In addition to Chinese language teaching, the schools also offer such courses as traditional Chinese dancing, Chinese chess, martial art, painting and folk arts," she said.

Xu also expressed her hope that CSAUS would continue to build a passageway for communication and understanding between the two countries with their teaching to help people form an objective and the full picture of other country.

Anna Hui, Missouri Director of Labor and Industrial Relations, thanked Chinese language teachers and parents to keep the Chinese traditional values, hard work, respect, education, humility in the Chinese community.

"I know the success of a Chinese school is really dependent on the parents who dedicate their time, effort, and heart into their volunteer activity. I'd like to express my personal thanks to a few of those leaders that I have had the pleasure of working with and those people are in the crowd today," Hui said.

Founded in 1994, the CSAUS is a national non-profit of Chinese language education in the United States, consisting of over 500 Chinese schools in over 50 major or medium-size cities. There are over 100,000 students and over 8,000 teachers at these member schools.