Mandarin Chinese

汉语 (hanyu) or 中文 (zhongwen)

As part of the New National Curriculum from 2014 in England learning a foreign language has been compulsory for Key Stage 2 children. At Waltham St Lawrence Primary children in Year 3 -5 learn French. As a forward-thinking school we have opted for Year 6 children to learn Mandarin Chinese over European languages. It gives the children an extra option when they go to secondary school.

Mandarin Chinese is one of the fastest growing languages in the world, and it links brilliantly with other curriculum areas such as geography and history. It opens children’s eyes to other cultures, and creates quite a buzz in the classroom.

Mandarin Curriculum was launched to Year 6 pupils in September 2014 and has got off to a flying start. Years 6 pupils have one Mandarin lesson each week. The teaching and learning focus on helping children to develop the skills necessary to communicate in the language.

In every lesson, children practise their speaking and listening skills. This is largely done using games, songs and rhymes with a regular phonics warm-up to establish correct pronunciation. As well as participating in whole-class oral work, the children get lots of opportunity to practise with their peers in pairs or small groups. Alongside these skills, all classes have already explored the fundaments of the written language, and will gradually build their ability in reading and writing Chinese characters as they progress through the curriculum.

Exploring aspects of Chinese culture is an integral part of the learning and where possible, references to Chinese culture, history and geography are incorporated into the language exercises. It is interesting and fun for the children to find out about China and the Chinese way of life and compare it with their own. We are keen for the children to bring in their own cultural experiences and knowledge of other languages to the Mandarin lesson.

Above all, the aim of our Mandarin and Chinese Culture curriculum is to inspire children in all their future language learning.

http://www.china.mrdonn.org/

What standard will be expected of your child?

Although the DfE hasn’t yet announced how children will be assessed in languages, the curriculum aims for them to:

Understand and respond to spoken and written language

Speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, and continually improve their pronunciation

Write at varying lengths using a variety of grammatical structures

Develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language.

It’s likely that speaking and listening will develop faster than reading and writing, but children also

love the calligraphy side of Chinese, using a brush and ink to write the characters.

A typical lesson is very interactive; we practise the pronunciation out loud, and the children have a

go at writing the characters in their individual writing books.

Chinese Painting - Bamboo

Learning TaiJi / Tai Chi

Learning to Write Chinese Characters using a brush