Mandarin
Our intent is to deliver an inspiring and memorable Mandarin curriculum, which enables our students to become confident communicators in Mandarin.
Intent:
We intend to create confident Mandarin speakers who are able to communicate fluently and be passionate about over 5,000 years of Chinese culture and history. Today Mandarin is the most spoken language in the world second to English and we aim to develop confident communicators for academic excellence as well as character development such as creativity, curiosity, understanding, independence, and resilience by providing high quality of teaching and a well-rounded learning experience of Mandarin at KWS, so that our students become successful and open-minded citizens in our multicultural and multilingual world.
Implementation:
Mandarin programmes of studies at KWS are planned in a logical sequence building on key themes and content culminating in a deeper understanding and application of the main topics, as well as vocabulary, grammar, and phonics. Here is an overview of the five-year Mandarin curriculum,
| Yr7-11 | Autumn | Spring | Summer |
| Year7 | Introduction to Chinese language and Greetings | Family and Home | School |
| Year8 | Hobbies | Food and Drink | Holidays |
| Year9 | Revision of Year 7-8
Introduce GCSE: My Hobbies; My Family |
Getting Around
Shopping |
Daily Routine
Eating Out |
| Year10 | Healthy living
On Holiday and Sightseeing |
Going online
Entertainment and Media |
Job and Career ambition
Global issues |
| Year11 | Education
Hometown Chinese tradition |
Revision | Revision |
Studies focus on developing the 4 skills of Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing throughout the duration of the course whilst interweaving the thematic studies in each academic year.
In Year 7, emphasis is placed on Speaking, Listening, Pronunciation and memorising techniques.
In Year 8, on developing students’ confidence in manipulating grammar/tenses and sentence structures in all four skills.
In Year 9 is the bridging year for our students to deepen understanding of all topics. Students expand their vocabulary and complex structures and develop spontaneous Speaking and extended Writing skills.
In Year 10, we introduce the AQA GCSE specification, themes and topics. Using a range of resources including a GCSE vocabulary booklet, students practise all four skills at a more advanced level and practise exam skills. In Year 11, students continue to practise Speaking, Writing, Listening and Writing and exam skills.
Competence in using Chinese-language ICT is an ongoing focus, with students practising recognising and writing characters on ArchChinese, using Quizlet and the Chairman’s Bao to read, listen and speak Mandarin, and Reading Progress to improve pronunciation and speaking.
We have developed our own termly Knowledge Organisers and Sentence Builders being used to ensure consistency of learning across the classrooms. These are shared with students as a support resource to help reduce cognitive load, and our lessons are used to ensure students develop their confidence over each term. We focus on developing phonics, vocabulary, and grammatical knowledge, with the aim of setting students up for success in the termly assessments.
- Modelling via Sentence Builders
- Awareness-Raising grammatical structures
- Receptive Processing via listening and reading flooding activities
- Structured Production via writing and oral practised activities
- Expansion explicit Grammar teaching and practice
- Autonomy scaffolding gets removed and students produce language without support
- Routinization recycling vocabulary constantly specially key impact expressions/functions
- Spontaneity producing spontaneous language within a topic
All of these aforementioned resources, and the curriculum content, have been developed with carefully selected core vocabulary and grammatical structures, and from less complex to more complex Chinese characters within each topic in KS3, which we believe build the basis for success in Mandarin.
Assessment:
The 4 skills of Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing are interlinked and we are constantly developing all four. Hence, each term we assess all four skills and this enables our students to develop an awareness of how to revise effectively and improve in each skill. It also identifies which skills each student feels most confident in and which is the one they may need to focus on for improvement.
Here are the Yr 7-9 Mandarin standards.
Here are the Yr 10-11 Mandarin standards.
Super Curriculum:
KWS offers Chinese culture period 7 sessions such as Jianzi, Chinese Karaoke, and Chinese calligraphy, etc., to all students. In Year 9, our students attend a KS3 Mandarin Study Day to Chinatown, the British Museum and the Shaolin temple. The trip helps pupils gain an understanding of China’s 5000 years history in an exploration of artefacts, as well as appreciate Chinese martial arts. Best of all, we also run an annual China trip for students in Year 10, which combines intensive language learning with cultural activities, a school exchange and excursions to some of the most famous sights in and around Beijing (and other cities).