Mandarin (AS only)
“ Learning Chinese, a language which is entirely different to all European languages, will provide one of the most exciting, challenging and rewarding experiences of your life.”Mrs Liu, Teacher of Mandarin
By looking at media, books and film, you will develop the knowledge and skills to enable you to understand the unique values, struggles, sensibility, joys and sorrows of the Chinese people.
Learning Chinese (Mandarin) for GCSE is a matter of taking your first steps to learn basic Chinese words, phrases and sentence structures that leave real conversations still beyond your reach. It is in the Sixth Form that you will deepen your grammatical competence and broaden your vocabulary so that you can converse about, and debate, real-world issues and immerse yourself into the culture, literature and arts of the Chinese country.
Our AS Level Chinese is offered as an enrichment course which provides the advanced learners the opportunity to study Chinese up to AS level within two years. The enrichment course syllabus is based on contemporary topics which you will find useful for work, higher education and for personal use. It will give you a solid grounding in the language skills and knowledge of contemporary society. The course covers two core themes which include Changes of Contemporary Chinese Society and Chinese Culture. In the first year, four major topic areas are taught for Theme 1 Contemporary Chinese Society: family structures and generation gap, family plan and aging problems, school life, job opportunity and balance between work and life. In the second year, another four topics will be introduced for Theme 2 Chinese Culture: festivals, customs, films and TV, music and books. At the end of the two years’ study, students will sit EDEXCEL Level 3 Advanced Subsidiary GCE in Chinese, the AS level exam.
For all our Mandarin students we offer many extra-curricular activities including: after school club; Chinese New Celebration; an annual China trip to Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou and Xi’an; regular conversation lessons with a native Chinese speaker; a visit to East Asian Museum; a visit to a Chinese restaurant; and taking part in the annual speaking competition
The ultimate goal is to help students use Chinese in real-life situations and cultivate lifelong Chinese language learning, and to help students appreciate their own cultures and Chinese culture.