Chinese Languages Program 2023

Chinese Language and Culture at St John's

Chinese Martial Arts Incursion - Year 5/6

Chinese Reflection for 2023

2023 was the starting point of St. Johns’ whole school Chinese Program. Looking back on this past year, we have made great progress in learning Chinese. The students have gained a better understanding of Chinese, both in terms of language knowledge as well as cultural experience. They were provided with authentic and fun contexts to use and explore the language.

In 2023, we have learnt the following topics:

Prep: Greetings, Chinese instructions, Numbers, Colours

Year 1/2: Greetings, Numbers, My Family, Colours

Year 3/4: Self-introduction, Weather and Seasons, China Travel, Countries around the world

Year 5/6: Hobbies, Chinese inventions, Chinese cities, Countries and languages

Spoken Chinese, Written Chinese

We have learnt to…

Prep:

- use teacher-modelled tones and rhythms to interact with teacher and peers

- become aware of Chinese as a separate language to English within our community

- observe that the sounds of Chinese can be encoded in Pinyin using familiar letters

- understand characters as written symbols of Chinese

- trace and copy strokes of Chinese characters

Year 1/2:

- follow and provided classroom instructions in Chinese

- recognise the importance of tone in Chinese speech

- use teacher-modelled sentences to ask questions and express ideas

- understand characters as writtensymbols of Chinese

- trace and copy simple Chinese characters by following sequences of strokes

Year 3/4:

- read new vocabulary with Pinyin

- use simple structured sentences to ask questions and express ideas

- obtain and process information from spoken sources and convey this information using learnt phrases and key words

- understand that Chinese characters have evolved due to cultural and historical reasons

- trace and copy simple Chinese characters by following sequences ofstrokes

Year 5/6:

- record and learn new vocabulary by using Pinyin

- speak with attention to the sounds and tones of words

- form sentences to express details

- understand that Chinese characters have evolved due to cultural and historical reasons

- create written imaginative texts with the learnt characters

Cultural experiences included:

• Chinese festivals and legends 
• Chinese dancing
• Paper cutting and origami
• Chinese calligraphy 
• Chopsticks competition
• Chinese hacky sack games
• Chinese martial arts

Highlights

1. We are risk-takers to learn and use a new language to express ourselves
2. We have developed a curiosity about Chinese language and culture and explored with enthusiasm.
3. We got hands - on experience of authentic Chinese skills and knowledge such as Chinese calligraphy writing, Chinese Dancing, Chinese martial arts, and traditional Chinese games.

Thank-you for supporting our program this year and I am looking forward to teaching your children again in 2024.

Elina Li

Chinese Languages Teacher