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Mandarin Chinese

Watch the video of our pupils at a recent Mandarin competition.

Mandarin is taken as an option in Years 7 and 8. Pupils from Chinese speaking countries follow an accelerated course of study, which concentrates, on oral and aural work leading to a GCSE exam in Year 11, or earlier where possible. Pupils with no previous knowledge of Chinese follow a separate scheme of work, detailed below also leading to the GCSE exam in Year 11.

Head of Mandarin
Ms Emma Cordwell BA CELTA
Teachers:
Mr Ernie C M Tsao BA M.Ed. CELTA Miss Yue He BA, MA

Pupils will learn how to use a Chinese word processing package and will have opportunities to practise their oral skills with a teacher from Mainland China. They will also be involved in cultural activities such as calligraphy and cooking and will celebrate Chinese New Year and Moon Festival with pupils from Chinese speaking countries.

Years 7 use the following course books - Practical Chinese Reader 1, Hanyu for beginners, Chinese for GCSE Book 1 and Ni Hao 1. These books are supplemented with teacher produced material.

Topic areas covered in Year 7 are: Self; Family and friends; Numbers; Dates; Time; Colours; Animals (pets); Opinions (likes and dislikes); Classroom Vocabulary; Countries; Nationalities; Greeting and Entertaining; Food and Drink; Café and Restaurant; Letter Writing; School; Places in the town.

Trips

We are organising a trip to China for 2010. Please download the Terms and Conditions and Itinerary (please print, complete and return the form if you would like your child to go).

The China trip runs every two years for students from Years 7 to 13. In 2004 24 students visited Beijing, Shanghai and Xian. In 2006 11 students travelled to Shanghai, Qingdao, Chengdu and Hangzhou. Students take part in a range of visits and cultural activities and have plenty of opportunity to use their language in practical situations.

Michaelmas Term

The basic unit goals and activities this term are: greetings and role play; Chinese culture, language and character; understanding basic pinyin and stroke order; building vocabulary, listening drills, reading and writing Chinese characters; sentence patterns.

Lent Term

Children learn to ask and answer questions: names of countries; the four skill areas, Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing; Chinese culture-minorities; places in China and its rivers; the culture – tea drinking and tasting, learning drinks-role-play; famous places; socialising using vocabulary learned - school and dormitory, use of sentence patterns; numbers 1 – 100.

Summer Term

Role play – telephone, entertaining; describing school and situations using the four skill areas; use of personal names; countries and people; sentence patterns; family members, jobs, ID forms, school, and pupils to write a short essay and letter.

By the end of Year 7 students will have a vocabulary of about 150 characters. They will have a thorough knowledge of pinyin and stroke order and will be able to listen for and to use tones. Students will also be able to use a Chinese dictionary.

In Year 8 more focus is given to character writing. The following course books are used - Practical Chinese Reader 1, Hanyu for Intermediate Students and Chinese for GCSE Books 1 and 2. As in Year 7 these books are supplemented with teacher produced material

Topic areas covered in Year 8 are: Transport, places, activities, asking the way, professions, clothes, colours, personal description, body parts, weather, school, daily routine, times of day, time phrases, opinions, extended letter writing, dialogue and note writing.

By the end of Year 8 pupils will have a vocabulary of about 300 characters.

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