Why Chinese is central to our curriculum

Helena Hicks

Director of Chinese Studies

 

 

At Wellington, we want our pupils to be curious about the world so they can engage in it with confidence and tolerance. Learning a new language is one of the most effective ways that we can build a bridge between cultures and communities. When we can communicate across cultures, our world becomes closer. Our common humanity outweighs our differences. This is one of the many reasons why Chinese is such an important part of the Wellington curriculum.

Despite the challenges presented by the ongoing pandemic, our pupils continue to earn high marks in public exams. The overwhelming majority of Wellingtonians who sat last year’s IB and IGCSE exams for Chinese scored 7s and A*s, respectively. This is a resounding testament to our dedicated teaching team, but our metric for success goes far beyond high exam scores.

Our pupils are international, and after graduation, we want their Chinese to be a marketable skill when they start their careers, whether in China or abroad. We, therefore, aim for full literacy and oracy — the ability to read and absorb a Chinese newspaper, speak clearly and accurately, or even write a report. We deliver on this objective; the vast majority of our pupils can speak Chinese like a local by the time they reach years 11 to 13.

This academic year sees us redoubling our efforts. We  emphasising literacy with graded reading for our First Language Chinese pupils in years 1 to 4 as well as more reading-based activities for our Second and Foreign Language pupils. We are collaborating more closely with the Wellington College China The Bridge | China to integrate the recent changes to the Chinese National Curriculum into our provision for years 7 to 9. For our Foreign Language Chinese pupils, we have introduced a new EdTech platform called Education Perfect. This features curriculum-aligned interactive learning activities and provides us with performance data that enables us to monitor progress more closely.

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But language learning is just one facet of our provision. Cultural studies and activities enhance and reinforce language learning. Traditional Chinese festivals provide the perfect opportunity to engage the whole College in cultural learning. With our Mid-Autumn celebrations, our pupils experienced traditional music, art and customs. With our upcoming Chinese New Year activities, our pupils will get to shine on stage with annual music and dance performances. As summer approaches, our pupils will learn about Dragon Boat Festival with dragon boat races on the sports field and dragon dance performances by pupils working closely with the Sanlin local community. 

Our CCAs provide yet another avenue of exploration into Chinese culture with courses in calligraphy, art, dance, history and even debate. In fact, our Chinese debate teams have been going from strength to strength recently. In April’s Zongheng Cup, our U16 team won the championship round, with Krystal earning the honour of ‘Best Debater Throughout the Contest’ and Yolanda earning ‘Excellent debater Throughout the Contest’. In August, our U13 team put on a fantastic performance as well, winning the China National Championship with Elizabeth and Rachel earning the title of ‘Best Debater in a Single Round’.

Finally, on behalf of the entire Chinese Department, I would like to congratulate Doris Zhang. Ms Zhang recently represented Wellington Shanghai in the International Schools Teaching Skills Competition and the Wonder Teachers Competition held by RAISE TopSchools. She competed against 198 teachers from 73 schools in China by submitting a teaching plan and a video recording of one of her classes to a panel of judges. Ms Zhang’s teaching advanced her to the final round of the competition, and she was awarded an ‘Outstanding Teacher’ prize. This is a truly remarkable achievement for Ms Zhang, who is only 26 years old. We are all immensely proud of her and are excited to see what she can accomplish in the years to come.