Mandarin 

Mandarin Newsletter – Week 6 Term 1 2024

新年快乐！龙年大吉！Xin Nian Kuai Le! Long Nian Da Ji!

Happy New Year! Best wishes to you all in the Year of Dragon!

As a great start of language and cultural learning in Term 1, students all had a wonderful time exploring the traditions and celebrations of Chinese New Year during the first few weeks of their Mandarin lessons. In particular, we also discussed the origin and mythical stories of the Chinese Zodiac Animals, and how the dragon is considered as an auspicious sign by the Chinese people in their cultures.

Junior Level

For many of our Prep students, it was the very first time to embark on a wonderful journey of learning Mandarin. In the past few weeks, we have been exploring some basic expressions in Mandarin to learn how to greet each other and introduce ourselves. We have also been practising counting in Mandarin and writing numbers in Chinese characters, and many of us have already shown a strong understanding of the unique features of the writing system of Chinese. 

As for our Year 1/2 students, we have been learning functional language phrases with gestures related to class and school scenarios. In addition, many of us showed strong interest in singing famous nursery rhymes in Mandarin, and we are developing very good fluency and understanding of the pronunciations of the language with the help of the music.

Middle Level

In the first few weeks of Term 1, students from Year 3/4 classes shared and extended their knowledge of the traditions and celebrations of the Chinese New Year. We showed strong interest in finding out the Chinese Zodiac Animal of our own, and we also learnt to practise writing the matching Chinese characters of those animal words. In addition, we have also been learning to introduce and talk about our school, and will continue to expand our vocabulary and phrases on the topic of school facilities.

Senior Level

For our Year 5/6 students, in the first few weeks of Term 1, we had inquiry-based learning on the topic of Lunar New Year, and also shared and discussed similarities and differences between Chinese New Year and Vietnamese New Year. We have also been practising our spoken language in Mandarin by learning useful travelling phrases and expressions. As senior students, we will also continue to further develop our understanding of the writing system of the language by learning to recognise and write Chinese characters in short phrases and sentences.

Mr. Su

苏老师