TEACHING MANDARIN
IN A UK PRIMARY
SCHOOL.
Rhoda Pennington
Mandarin at Highgate Primary School
• Part of the Key Stage 2 curriculum
(Years 3 to 6) (ages 7 to 11 years)
• Also taught in Years 1 and 2 (ages 5-7 years) at our
school (but not the Reception children)
• 2014/15 is the second year of Mandarin at Highgate
Primary.
• Mandarin is the only foreign language taught at our
school.
Languages programmes of study at Key
Stage 2 in the National Curriculum
• a very loose framework
• no mandatory formal testing or assessment
• four skills (speaking, listening, reading, writing)
• practical communication
What will your teaching aims be?
My teaching aims
1) A love of language learning
• Nurture children to become confident language learners in
preparation for MFL at secondary school.
• Give children skills they can use in the future to learn any
language.
• Establish the link between learning a language and
engaging with another culture.
• Celebrate other languages spoken by the children.
My teaching aims (2): Promoting
Mandarin and Chinese culture
• Mandarin is a fascinating language for a UK school child
to learn. It is not hard to convince them of this.
• Open up Chinese culture and history to the children.
• Wherever possible have a creative cultural task linked to
each topic.
Priorities when teaching in UK Schools.
• The needs of every child in the class should be catered
for (differentiation).
• Every child should be challenged.
• Children should be making progress in every lesson.
• Lessons should be engaging.
• The teacher should continually assess to check pupils’
understanding.
Formative Assessment
• Targeted questioning
• Walking around the classroom
• Pair/group demonstration
• Games with inbuilt assessment
In what ways might you be able to assess
children’s progress during the lesson?
Differentiation
• Scaffolding (support for all learners – but this helps the
weakest children). Gestures are a brilliant form of
scaffolding.
• Extra challenge (available for all children to access so that
they can access it when they are ready).
• Plan for children with special educational needs.
Our children learn best when..
• The task is engaging.
• They are active learners.
• The language they are using has a real purpose.
• There is a creative element.
Creative tasks we have used at Highgate
Primary
• Making terracotta warriors from clay
• Making Ming Vases
• Making Chinese Opera Masks (colours)
• Designing visual prompt cards for characters like
Chineasy.
• Making and decorating boxes for Moon Cakes
• A class assembly about Marco Polo’s visit to China
Creativity in songs / games / character
recognition
• Songs and rhymes make language memorable.
• Games encourage active learning – whole class games,
flashcard games in pairs.
• Children are being creative when they make up ways to
recognise characters.
Target language Target Language Target
Language
• Aim to use Mandarin as much as you can.
• Use the same set phrases each time you give an
instruction in Mandarin.
• Think carefully about the Mandarin you are using.
Target language for routines in lessons
• Teacher and class greet each other and say goodbye at
the end of the lesson.
• Target language for instructions and classroom
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•
•
•
•
•
management :
请坐下／ 站起来
安静!
请看我 / 听 / 注意！
再说一遍
跟我说。。
Use the same phrases/words each time you instruct
Other routine instructions in target
language..
Positive Behaviour Management
• Do it in Mandarin!
• Avoid telling a child NOT to do something. Choose a child
who is doing the RIGHT thing and praise them.
• Use the same phrases over and over for familiarity。
• Use visual prompts. (看， 听， 安静。。。）
• Use the school positive behaviour management strategy.
• Use stickers etc. to reward good effort (be a bit sparing!)
Simple phrases for positive behaviour
management.
Families lesson sequence
• Plan a series of lessons (lesson sequence).
• Build from words to sentences.
• Build from children giving answers to children asking
questions and giving answers.
• Create opportunities to extend the high attaining students.
• Provide support (scaffolding) for all students.
The four skills
• Speaking and listening move faster than reading and
writing.
• Pick key characters for a given topic for children to learn
to read/recognise and write.
• In literacy lessons children are learning how to form the
English alphabet correctly, so they will happily work on
writing characters correctly.
Celebrating Mandarin and Chinese
culture around the school.
• Display work in public areas
• Mandarin display board for every classroom you teach in.
• Celebrate Chinese festivals in school assembly.
• Chinese theme for class assembly.
• Does the school website mention Mandarin?