Specialist News Mandarin

新年快乐！

Xin Nian Kuai Le! Happy New Year!As a new year of learning starts in Term 1 2023, it also marked the beginning of the new year in the Chineselunar calendar. In the first week of our Mandarin classes, we have been exploring and learning about bothtraditional and modern celebrations of Lunar New Year 2023 – Year of the Rabbit!

Junior Level

For our Prep students, it was the first time for many of them to embark on a wonderful journey of learningMandarin. In the first week, we explored some basic expressions in Mandarin to learn how to greet eachother and introduce ourselves. During Term 1, Prep students will continue with their Mandarin learningthrough daily greetings and explore vocabulary and expressions around numbers and colours. They will alsobe learning the fundamental features of writing in Chinese. Students, therefore, are immersed in the soundsand spoken words of Mandarin, the meaning of which is made clear through participation in a range ofactivities. As for our Year 1/2 students, after reviewing the topics from last year on animals and weather, wealso explored the origin of Chinese Zodiac animals and had great fun making our very cute Year of theRabbit Hong Bao (Red Packet). In the following weeks, we will explore the functions of Pinyin and usegestures to understand the difference between the tones. They will also expand their vocabulary andexpressions in Mandarin by exploring familiar topics such as classroom objects and school facilities.

Middle Level

In the first week, students from Year 3/4 classes shared and extended their knowledge of the traditions andcelebrations of the Lunar New Year. We also had a great time playing the game of Tic-Tac-Toe the ChineseZodiac Animals version where we needed to correctly name the animals in Mandarin to place the marks insquares.In Term 1, Year 3/4 students will continue to participate in class routines, structured conversations, andactivities using teacher-modelled tones and rhythms through exploring the topics on occupations andactivities. They will also grow a better understanding of the importance of tones in Chinese speech as wellas the use of Pinyin where the sounds of Mandarin can be encoded using English letters.

Senior Level

For our Year 5/6 students, we brought back a Kahoot challenge on facts and celebrations around Lunar NewYear. We discussed in detail each Kahoot question and shared our knowledge and experiences of celebratingthis wonderful festival. In Term 1, senior students will learn to discover the distinctive features of the spokenlanguage and begin to use Pinyin and tone marks to practice syllables and tones that they encounter in newwords. By exploring the topics on hobbies and leisure activities, students will further develop their

understanding and abilities in reading and writing Chinese knowing that characters represent the real form ofwriting in Chinese.

Looking forward to a wonderful journey of language learning in the Year of the Rabbit at TCS!

Mr. Su

苏老师