Programme of study

Topics

In Years 7 - 9, learners will engage in tasks that combine language and content about a variety of cultural topics.  These topics establish the contexts for tasks and teachers will include examples from the many countries in which Mandarin is spoken. Through topics and tasks, learners will be made aware of relevant sociocultural knowledge and perspectives and the ways in which cultural and social practices are reflected in language use. When working with the content through Mandarin, teachers can simultaneously enhance students’ understanding of their own cultural knowledge and that associated with Mandarin. Learners progressively understand that cultural understanding involves not only visible practices but also less visible ways of making meaning, such as value systems, attitudes and social processes.

The tasks will be based on communicative purposes within the following topics:

•  personal and community life;

•  leisure and recreation;

•  the natural world;

•  the built world;

•  the international world;

•  the imaginative world.

The following is a list of language functions learners will develop — at increasing levels of complexity through the years of KS3 language learning.

Socialising

•  greeting and leave taking

•  introducing

•  expressing thanks and gratitude

•  apologising and excusing

•  congratulating, complimenting, praising

•  expressing sympathy and regret

•  asking and giving permission

•  attracting attention

•  making arrangements

•  offering and responding to invitations and suggestions

•  welcoming

Exchanging information

• identifying and asking about people, places and things

• describing people, places and things

• identifying and asking when

• expressing probability and improbability

• expressing and asking about likes and dislikes

• expressing and asking about wants, wishes and intentions

• expressing and asking about needs

• asking for and giving directions and locations

• identifying and asking about situations, activities and events

• describing situations, activities and events

• describing and asking about routines, habits and procedures

• requesting goods and services

• offering and receiving things

• expressing possession

• giving and responding to instructions

• comparing

• expressing possibility and impossibility

• expressing obligation and duty

• expressing ability and inability

• affirming or negating statements

Feelings, opinions and attitudes

• expressing feelings

• expressing hope

• reacting with joy, anger, surprise, excitement

• expressing approval, agreement and disagreement

• expressing interest or a lack of interest

• complaining

• giving reasons

• expressing opinions

Negotiating meaning

• asking for repetition

• asking for assistance

• expressing understanding and lack of understanding

• asking for and giving clarification

• asking for and giving confirmation

• asking how to say, write and pronounce

Process Skills and Strategies

Communication

• use information in a text to guess the meaning of new items and to predict what is coming; confirm or reject predictions

• recognise and use formulas and patterns

• make links in text with cohesion, i.e. through use of pronouns, ellipsis, repetition, related words, substitutions and conjunctions

• identify and apply text features

• make decisions about how best to meet the communicative demands of particular situations; identifying the demands, selecting and organising information to meet the demands, considering alternatives and evaluating the effectiveness of the solution

• analyse and judge the content of texts, e.g. identify attitudes and recognise validity, fact versus opinion, bias

• use information in texts in critical and creative ways

Comprehending

Listening

• identify main ideas and supporting detail

• interpret speaker’s attitude, e.g. through stress, intonation and body language

• interpret gestures and facial expressions

• identify idiom and colloquial language use

Reading

• identify main ideas and supporting detail

• locate information — use key words, context

• use graphic features to help with meaning

• skim for overall text features and register

• scan for specific information

Composing

Speaking

• plan what to say

• initiate and end conversations

• control pitch, intonation and rhythm

• pronounce clearly and accurately

• pause to self-correct

Writing

• plan what to write

• use appropriate Pinyin and write characters accurately

• use appropriate punctuation

• sequence material logically

• draft and redraft, edit and proofread