Westholme School - Mandarin

Mandarin

Mandarin was introduced into the curriculum in the academic year of 2006/07 across all Years 7, 8 and 9. Since then, Westholme students have come a long way, mastering the tonal pronunciation and the Chinese characters of this oriental language.

MANDARIN CURRICULUM

At Westholme, Mandarin is offered throughout Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4. Years 7 and 8 will enjoy one hour of Mandarin every week. By the end of Year 8, students will be given an option to continue their study of Mandarin at Year 9. Year 9 students will study two hours of Mandarin each week. By the end of Year 9, students will again consider the prospect of pursuing Mandarin at GCSE level.

A TASTE OF MANDARIN

Year 7:

Currently, Year 7 will start off Mandarin with simple greetings and classroom commands. They will gain an understanding of the Chinese writing system where they will learn about the evolution, the construction and also the components of Chinese characters. They will take up the challenge of learning the phonetic system of Mandarin and mastering the four basic tones of this language as each tone will constitute a different meaning!

At the end of their first year in Westholme, pupils will acquire enough language knowledge to be able to speak, listen, read and write about the following thematic topics:

Numbers from 1 - 99
Dates
Expressing gratitude and apology
Introducing self and others
Introducing one's surname and name
Introducing one's immediate family

Year 8

Pupils in Year 8 will acquire more language ability to allow them to state their likes and dislikes, to describe the colours of objects and also to ask for information from others. By the end of their course, they will be able to write a short paragraph in Chinese. They will cover thematic topics on the following:

Colours
Clothes
Animals
Face
Fruit & vegetables
Food & drink
Stationery
Rooms in the House
Electrical appliances and furniture in the house

Year 9

Our Year 9 course aims at providing a sound foundation for GCSE syllabus and deals with a wider range of sentence and question structures compared to Year 8. Pupils will be expected to write longer passages and with more complicated syntax. These are some of the topics that the Year 9 course will cover:

Greetings
Whose is this?
Family
Pets
Sports
Food & Drink
Time
Dates
Places & Occupations
Weather
Ambitions & Hobbies
Modes of Transport

Year 10 & 11

Pupils will develop their language skills in wider areas such as tourism, media, careers, employment and life in other countries. Apart from listening and reading, they will also develop their writing and speaking skills. By the end of the course, it is hoped that students will be able to write a passage in Chinese of approximately 120 characters on any of those topics that they have covered in Years 10 and 11.

Back to Curriculum

Feb 8, 2012

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