Mandarin
2025 Mandarin Term 1 Overview Theme: Celebrate 2025, the Year of the Snake
In Term One, the students from Foundation to Year Six will be familiarised with the Mandarin program, teacher’s expectations and grand rules by participating in a range of class routines, structured conversations and cultural activities.
2025, the Year of the Snake, will provide a great cultural context to engage students in Mandarin learning. We will incorporate zodiac stories, zodiac animal-related Chinese characters, Chinese greetings and cultural traditions associated with the Chinese New Year into weekly Mandarin lessons according to different year levels.
Foundation to Year Two students will explore the Chinese Zodiac Story and learn the basic vocabulary related to the snakes and twelve zodiac animals. They will practice daily routines such as ‘Hello’, ‘How are you?’, ‘I’m very good, thank you’, ‘Please be quite', raise your hand’, ‘good bye’, ‘please’ and counting from 1-12 in Mandarin. They will engage in listening to and chanting Chinese songs and rhymes with hand gestures.
Year Three and Four students will explore the Chinese Zodiac narrative, acquiring basic vocabulary and simple phrases related to the twelve zodiac animals. They will practice common New Year greetings in Mandarin, such as 'Wish You a Happy New Year,' 'Good Health,' 'Happiness and Prosperity,' 'May You Become Wealthy,' and 'Give Me a Red Envelope'. Additionally, they will engage in activities like flashcard exercises or matching games to reinforce these terms and learn how to inquire about and state the zodiac year of birth.
Year Five and Six students will delve into an in-depth exploration of the Chinese Zodiac narrative, gaining an understanding of the cultural significance of the Year of the Snake within Chinese tradition. They will learn how to inquire about and state their zodiac year of birth and popular Chinese New Year greetings such as 'Wish You a Happy New Year,' 'Good Health,' 'Happiness and Prosperity,' 'May You Become Wealthy,' and 'Give Me a Red Envelope'. Furthermore, students will participate in activities like self-introduction, class survey and will design posters to celebrate 2025 the Chinese New Year of the Snake to reinforce these terms.
Online resources：
1. Ming and the snake year (1:54)https://youtu.be/knK7ibJ3ZsU?si=YpN6bmkhC2zZ4cUP2. Happy New Year song (2:10)https://youtu.be/gM_QSDCjHKY?si=dry2-knABcgz30yG
3. The Great Race, a wonderful Chinese zodiac story (8:09)English version https://youtu.be/oZgoFiZ0mHY?si=IP1-CL4-yLuBGghu
4. （Sing the 12 Chinese Zodiac animals in order with gestures(0：39）https://youtu.be/6dg3Tg1aAvE?si=lF59uLTySXzcbUUu5. Kids Dance 12 Zodiac Animals (3:11)https://youtu.be/0tVcjLVah9k?si=NuSmtKHslVZY7dlq
6. Twelve Chinese Zodiac animals song (3:09)https://youtu.be/FhJ0LFlEFAs?si=xEaKZnR9RfWWhKKU7.
Zodiac animals vocabulary +the sentence pattern ‘’what’s yourzodiac animal? I’m ----https://youtu.be/Kh5aVeyMWdM?si=G4Wn8uQ7bt1Zu-NN8. 12
Zodiac animals in Chinese – Pebbles Chinese (16:56) Bilingualstory https://youtu.be/P1b7fgZkls0?si=1bXQoJ7uhU69sQbH9. 十二生肖的故事(8:56)
Little Chinese learners – Chinese Version https://youtu.be/mIiAB1jplfk?si=KRKpaDhziT0fiyIH10. TED ED The Myth behind Chinese Zodiac (4:20)
For 5-6 level or extension learners:https://youtu.be/may2s9j4RLk?si=eXz61MzB6oWQ2mYz
Kind regards
Ivy Wen
Mandarin Language Teacher