Congratulations, teachers of Chinese languages !

ALL is thrilled to be launching the Chinese Language Zone. Chinese language teachers, who volunteered to share their expertise, have been building this Zone to promote Chinese languages teaching and learning and to support the development of the Chinese languages teacher community. We much hope you’ll enjoy discovering the resources available here and invite you to get in touch to share your own work and/or to recommend any resources.

Heartfelt thanks to the volunteers who have worked together to launch this Chinese Language Zone! including

Ms Cara Bleiman, Ms Miki Carter, Dr. Yangguang Chen, Susanna Matera, Dr. Yu-Chiao Prouton, Mr James Stagg and Ms Shixiang Wu. Thanks to those who shared their photographs also!

Please visit other areas of the ALL website. All languages teachers have strategies in common and we here at ALL want to celebrate and support all languages teachers and their work.

The Chinese Language Zone depends on enthusiast to share; over to you!  Join the team!

Steven Fawkes and Judith Rifeser for ALL

A research report from the University of Cambridge and RAND Europe shows that investing in languages education in the UK could return more than the investment cost.

Researchers explored a gap in the evidence relating to the economic benefits of extending languages education and found that an increase in secondary-school pupils learning one of four different languages could increase UK GDP by billions of pounds over 30 years.

Some headlines: 

Researchers used a macroeconomic model to examine UK economic performance between now and 2050 if more pupils aged between 11 and 16—Key Stage 3 (KS3) and Key Stage 4 (KS4)—were to learn to speak one of four different languages which could later be used effectively in business.

An increase of 10 per cent in pupils learning Mandarin would increase GDP by between £11.5bn and £12.3bn. For French, the figure is between £9.1bn and £9.5bn, and for Spanish, between £9.1bn and £9.7bn.

The resulting findings of a 2:1 benefit-to-cost ratio for each language demonstrated that there are identifiable returns for investing in languages education, not just in economic terms but also in producing workers with the language skills needed for the UK to compete internationally.

Read more in the Research section of
https://www.all-languages.org.uk/research-practice/language-zones/home-heritage-community-languages/

https://www.all-languages.org.uk/news/how-to-embed-mandarin-into-your-curriculum/

https://www.all-languages.org.uk/news/hong-kong-poet-inspires-mandarin-beginners/

https://www.all-languages.org.uk/news/speaking-mandarin-to-be-a-career-advantage/

https://www.all-languages.org.uk/corporate-member/corporate-member-news/mandarin-excellence-programme/

ENACT, with support from the The Confucius Institute at Newcastle University, has collated a package of Chinese cultural activities for your learners to try. They can learn the Chinese words for ‘banana’ and ‘orange’, whilst making Beijing Ice Candy, or the words for ‘fire’ and ‘forest’, whilst trying calligraphy. These resources are free to download.

Please click here for further details.

Picture books, poems, nursery rhymes and fables can be great ways to engage young learners whilst modelling high quality authentic language. Here is a compilation of ideas for short written texts that could be used or adapted for use in your primary Chinese classroom. 

Shared by Cara Bleiman (Swire Chinese Language Centre London, Harris Federation)

Primary Chinese Library

On semanda.com, you will find basic Mandarin Chinese flashcards and vocabulary exercises for children and beginners.

The flashcards use both simplified Chinese characters (hanzi) and pinyin, and are available both online and as printable PDF files

http://www.semanda.com/

Film, documentary, adverts and vlogs can help engage learners and improve access to authentic Chinese cultural texts in your classroom. For ideas for visual texts in Chinese, you can view and edit the collaborative film GoogleDoc hosted by Cara Bleiman.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HOeG0LsNuHuWQcVsnBr1p6NlXbSr_V0r/view?usp=sharing

The texts are organized by themes, namely Tones, Hellos, Numbers, Heads & Shoulders,  Looking for Friends, Weekdays, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, To School, What's Your Name? How Old Are You? 

Although they are for children, they are at the right language level for teenagers and even adult students. Shared by Professor/Dr. Yangguang Chen (Goldsmiths, University of London)

Dr. Yangguang Chen 10 Pieces of Chinese Song and Nursery Rhymes to sing along.docx

The IOE Confucius Institute Mandarin Resources for Schools (MARS) page is a great place to find everything from worksheets, activities and Powerpoint presentations to memrise vocabulary sets, past papers and cultural projects.                          

Mandarin Resources for Schools

https://ci.ioe.ac.uk/mars-homepage/ 

The IoE Confucius Institute for Schools has collected together a range of resources for teaching primary Mandarin which are freely available here.

Primary Mandarin materials

 https://ci.ioe.ac.uk/teaching-materials/primary-materials-2/ 

Congratulations to volunteers from the Chinese teaching community who have created a Transition Toolkit to sit alongside those for French, German and Spanish in the ASCL suite of Toolkits, which were developed with members of the ALL Primary Steering Group.  The toolkit is now live on the ASCL website. 

Click here for the main page. 
Click here for the Chinese Transition Toolkit.
Click here for the Chinese Template link. 

This is a resource book generously shared by Miss Lin Min with a lot of cultural activities for Primary and Secondary Chinese learners.

A costed version of the fuller publication can be found through the link in the pdfs below.

Pages 1-50 

Pages 51-100

Pages 101-151

Pages 152-200

Pages 201-300

Pages 301-400

Pages 401-505

Paper Cutting

Please see below various styles for creating the cut-outs:

Style A

Style A2

Style B

Style B2

Please see the Paper Cuttings below:

Paper Cut Dragon #1

Paper Cut Dragon #2

Paper Cut Dragon #3

Paper Cut Dragon #4

Paper Cutting

These resources are kindly supported by Taipei Confucius Temple.

Please click here to see the instructions for creating the cut-outs.

Please see the Paper Cuttings below:

Paper Cut Rabbit #1

Paper Cut Rabbit #2

Paper Cut Rabbit #3

Paper Cut Rabbit #4

Paper Cut Rabbit #5

Paper Cut Rabbit #6

Dr Yu-chiao Chung kindly shares with us two short videos

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dtZaPB6k3uM388sP0vVRWYYsyES_DVLf/view?usp=sharing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=may2s9j4RLk&t=7s

Please click here for full details.

According to the Chinese Lunar Calendar, we enter the Year of the Tiger on February 1st, 2022. This education pack for primary schools contains information and activities to help teachers and pupils learn more about this important spring festival and explore Chinese language and culture. Your pupils can read a story explaining why the lion is not one of the twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac and how the tiger got the markings on its forehead. You can also find out about endangered animals like the South China tiger, learn vocabulary linked to the environment and conservation in Chinese and get creative making indoor kites and film trailers!

Download the pack here:
https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/year_of_the_tiger_education_pack.pdf 

Miki Carter describes here in English and Mandarin New Year traditional customs including:

• Spring cleaning
• Hanging “Fu” and Spring Festival Couplets
• New Year’s Eve Dinner
• Sending Red Envelopes (Lucky Money)
• New Year’s Day
• Worship the Kitchen God
• Shou Sui
• Sacrifice to the God of Wealth

Here is a Loom for Miki Carter's presentation on creating a Nearpod video lesson: https://www.loom.com/share/9b16b3d6313b41c78385eb2c49dc082d

Resources shared by Liz Fotheringham on encouraging Group Talk 

Group talk 1 Chinese stage 1 phrases

Grouptalk 2 Chinese flashcards

Grouptalk 3 phrases Stage 1

Grouptalk 4 phrases Stage 1 with stimuli

Grouptalk 5 matching phrases

Matthew Arnold wanted teachers to teach “the best that has been thought and said”. But with a monolingual inward-looking mindset, it would be easy to forget that “the best that has been thought and said” isn’t restricted to the English language.

Cara Bleiman’s article for Teach Secondary here argues why learning Mandarin is about so much more than preparing students for an uncertain jobs market.

https://www.teachwire.net/news/why-your-school-should-teach-mandarin-and-why-students-should-learn-it

Here Yu-Chiau Chung looks at different aspects of creativity and asks : How can creativity enhance the learning  of Community languages?

Creativity enhances the learning of Mandarin Chinese because it helps developing linguistic skills by providing meaningful and engaging contexts as well as opportunities for genuine communication.  This PPT provides the underpinning theoretical background of applying creative work in Chinese classrooms.  It also provides various ideas and pedagogies of creative work: scrapbooks, photostories, drama and songs.

 Yu-Chiao Chung Creativity in Chinese classrooms

ALL supports teachers of all languages in learning from each other. Here Steven Fawkes shares introductory thoughts on how language teachers use video resources to support learning. If you have suggestions of video resources for use in lessons, or other strategies please share them with [email protected] who will add them here.

Exploiting video resources in the Chinese classroom

If you haven’t been able to attend the Annual IOE Confucius Institute Mandarin Conference, all of the past Powerpoint presentations are freely available in this archive. It’s a real treasure trove of resources!

https://ci.ioe.ac.uk/conference-workshops-by-theme/

https://ci.ioe.ac.uk/conference-workshops/

Self-designed free flash cards, including the vocabularies from JInbu, Exdecel, AQA,HSK, Happy Chinese.

https://quizlet.com/MissLi-Mandarin/folders 

shared by Miss Jia Li (Bohunt School)

PurpleCulture.net is a Hong Kong-based online business dedicated to providing Chinese cultural and educational products to people interested in the Chinese language and culture. Products are sourced from Mainland China and posted via Hong Kong Post. Their website also provides free online pinyin converters and IME tools to support the learning of Chinese characters.

There are also additional functions for PRO customers, like flashcards, games, characters puzzle, word search and crosswords generators. At the moment, PRO membership is only $28.50 per year.                           

Purple Culture: https://www.purpleculture.net/chinese-stroke-order-generator/

Recommended by teacher trainees (PGCE Secondary Languages, Goldsmiths, University of London)

This is a website that contains comprehensive articles on Mandarin Chinese learning skills along with case studies, reviews of the latest popular Chinese textbooks or tools, and advice direct from the professional Chinese language experts, Chinese video lessons, learner community, etc. In addition, they also offer courses for different Chinese levels, with video-lesson and private tutors                                    
https://www.digmandarin.com/

Recommended by teacher trainees (PGCE Secondary Languages, Goldsmiths, University of London)

This handbook provides key information about the project including practical guidance to assist teachers with planning.

https://goldsmithsmdst.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/critical-connections-handbook_web.pdf

shared by Dr. Yu-Chiao Chung (Goldsmiths, University of London)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdc67_TqA-vq40vGVYpMho5z02jpLCdL1

 Follow this link to find a library of engaging songs and videos chosen for their suitability for primary Mandarin learners.

 Shared by Cara Bleiman, Harris Federation. Swire Chinese Language Centre London.

This podcast is for teachers of Chinese to foreign language learners and is hosted by the Swire Chinese Language Centre, Oxford. The content is delivered in both Chinese and English and covers recent topics in Mandarin Chinese education with a range of guests who are either teaching professionals of Chinese and/or modern foreign languages in general.

https://www.swirecentreoxford.org/podcast

This is a very active Chinese teacher forum where teachers share various information from teaching,researching and recruiting, free registration.

https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=MANDARIN-CHINESE-TEACHING

Free online worksheet generator. There are four different options:

1. Stroke order character writing practice worksheet generator
2. Short paragraphs copying exercise worksheets generator
3. Pinyin only worksheets generator for characters association practice
4. Characters only worksheets generator for pinyin association practice.

https://danmoshui.com

Recommended by teacher trainees (PGCE Secondary Languages, Goldsmiths, University of London)

The Mandarin Excellence Programme is an intensive language programme which now has over 5,000 pupils from 75 schools in England on track to fluency in Mandarin Chinese. It is funded by the Department for Education and delivered by the UCL Institute of Education in partnership with the British Council.

The website showcases resources and lesson planning suggestions.

https://www.britishcouncil.org/school-resources/languages/mandarin-excellence-programme

A report about the teaching of Chinese in the UK by Teresa Tinsely and Kathryn Board (2014). British Council: Available at: https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/alcantara_full_report_jun15.pdf

Miki Carter shares here a link to her Year 7 Mandarin CLIL drama class.

Please click here to watch on YouTube.

A Youtube channel where you can find the series “Chinese Grammar Simplified”. Here, using short video and animations, Luke Wang aims to break down and explain the most common grammatical patterns in the Chinese language.

Twin Cities Chinese Tutor: https://www.youtube.com/c/TwinCitiesChineseTutor/videos

Recommended by teacher trainees (PGCE Secondary Languages, Goldsmiths, University of London)

The Great Languages Challenge is available in several languages and can be completed during a planned lesson or also set as a language-themed homework task. There is also  a blank version available that students can use to design their own challenges for their classmates or peers in their partner school overseas.

https://www.britishcouncil.org/school-resources/find/classroom/great-languages-challenge 

The British Council hosts an annual Mandarin Speaking Competition – digitally in 2021 through a series of online events. The competition provides a great opportunity for secondary school students to practise and improve their Mandarin language skills.

 Link to the 2021 competition (now complete)

https://www.britishcouncil.org/education/schools/support-for-languages/partnerships-courses-resources/chinese-speaking-competition  

Chinese Writing Contest to encourage Chinese language learners to be creative and to write something using only 320 Chinese characters. This contest closes on September 30 2021.

There are prizes! Details are here:

https://www.mslmaster.com/index.php/8-contest/196-chinese-writing-contest 

This contest tries to change people’s perception about learning Chinese.

The Open Accessible Summaries In Language Studies (OASIS) initiative aims to make research findings on language learning and teaching available and accessible to a wide audience.

 OASIS summaries are one-page descriptions of research articles on language learning, language teaching, and multilingualism that have been published in peer-reviewed journals listed on the Social Science Citation Index or the Arts and Humanities Citation Index. The summaries provide information about the study’s goals, how it was conducted, and what was found, and are written in non-technical language. Where relevant, they also highlight findings that may be of particular interest to language educators, although the initiative is not solely aimed at research with immediate practical implications. The summaries are generally approved, and often (co-)written, by the author(s) of the original journal article.

  https://oasis-database.org/

Dr. Judith Rifeser writes: The Language Learning Journal is the official journal of the Association for Language Learning. It is an open access journal by Taylor Francis that publishes international research on the teaching and learning of languages, pedagogy and multilingualism and multiculturalism. ALL members have access to the journal as a member benefit. ALL Language Learning Journal page: https://www.all-languages.org.uk/research-practice/language-learning-journal-llj/

You and/or your school can join to become an ALL member here which provides access to the full range of benefits that ALL has to offer. We also offer corporate membership: https://www.all-languages.org.uk/join/become-a-member/

Within the ALL  Language Learning Journal links, the DOI (Direct Object Identifier) will lead directly to the article, if you are an ALL Member.

Bao, R. (2020) Collaborative dialogue between complete beginners of Chinese as a foreign language: implications it has for Chinese language teaching and learning. In: The Language Learning Journal, 48:4, pp. 414-426, DOI: 10.1080/09571736.2017.1422136

Hu, B. (2010) The challenges of Chinese: a preliminary study of UK learners' perceptions of difficulty . In: The Language Learning Journal, 38:1, pp. 99-118, DOI: 10.1080/09571731003620721

Hughes, N., Lo, L. & Xu, S. (2019) Blended Chinese language learning design: an integrative review and synthesis of the literature. In: The Language Learning Journal, 47:3, pp. 313-331, DOI: 10.1080/09571736.2017.1280526

Osborne C., Zhang, Q. & Zhang, G. X. (2020) Which is more effective in introducing Chinese characters? An investigative study of four methods used to teach CFL beginners. In: The Language Learning Journal, 48:4, pp. 385-401, DOI: 10.1080/09571736.2017.1393838

Zhang, D., Lin, C.-H., Zhang, Y. and Choi, Y. (2019) Pinyin or no pinyin: does access to word pronunciation matter in the assessment of Chinese learners’ vocabulary knowledge?. In: The Language Learning Journal, 47:3, pp. 344-353, DOI: 10.1080/09571736.2017.1289237

Zhang, G.X. & Li, L.M. (2010) Chinese language teaching in the UK: present and future. In:  The Language Learning Journal, 38:1, pp. 87 97, DOI: 10.1080/09571731003620689

Reading list recommended by Cara Bleiman (SWIRE):

Bassetti, Benedetta (2006) Orthographic input and phonological representations in learners of Chinese as a foreign language. Written Language and Literacy 9 (1), pp. 95-114

Everson, M. (2011). Best Practices in Teaching Logographic and Non-Roman Writing Systems to L2 Learners. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 31, 249-274. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190511000171

Fotini, D., L. Pan and K. Carruthers (2018) Mandarin Chinese Teacher Education: Issues and Solutions. London: UCL IOE Press

Newman, E. H., Tardif, T., Huang, J., and Shu, H. (2011). Phonemes matter: the role of phoneme-level awareness in emergent Chinese readers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 108(2), pp. 242–259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2010.09.001

Orton, J. and Scrimgeour, A. (2019) Teaching Chinese as a Second Language: The Way of the Learner. London: Routledge.

Ping, W. (2009). The Provision of Mandarin Chinese in the UK Secondary Schools: What's in the Way? European Journal of Education, 44(1), 83-94. Retrieved May 23, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25481892

Starr, D. (2009) Chinese Language Education in Europe: the Confucius Institutes. In: European Journal of Education, Vol. 44 (1) pp. 65- 82. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-3435.2008.01371.x

Wang, J. and Leland , C. H.(2011) Beginning students’ perceptions of effective activities for Chinese character recognition. In: Reading in a Foreign Language. 23(2) pp. 208 – 224. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ943538.pdf

Yin, L., Li, W., Chen, X., Anderson, R.C., Zhang, J., Shu, H. and Jiang, W. (2011) The role of tone awareness and pinyin knowledge in Chinese reading. In: Writing Systems Research, 3:1, pp. 59-68, DOI: 10.1093/wsr/wsr010

Dr. Judith Rifeser (ALL Honorary Deputy Membership Officer/ Goldsmiths, University of London) recommends these texts on creativity, bilingualism and citizenship education in relation to the teaching of Chinese

Anderson, J. and Chung, Y-C. (2011) Finding a voice: arts based creativity in the community languages classroom. In: International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. 14:5 pp. 551-569. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2010.537742

Chen, Y. (2007) Equality and Inequality of Opportunity in Education: Chinese Emergent Bilingual Children in the English Mainstream Classroom. In: Language, Culture and Curriculum. 20:1 pp. 36-51, https://doi.org/10.2167/lcc325.0

Chen, Y. (2014) Becoming global citizens through bilingualism: Language policy and Chinese citizenship education in a globalising world. In: Kennedy, J. K, Gregory, P.F.& Zhao, Z (eds) (2014) Citizenship Education in China: Preparing Citizens for ‘the Chinese Century’. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

Gregory, P.F. & Zhao, Z (eds) (2014) Citizenship Education in China: Preparing Citizens for ‘the Chinese Century’. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. 

Jiang, X. and Cohen, A.D. (2012) A critical review of research strategies in learning Chinese as both a second and foreign language. In: Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching. 2:1 pp. 9-43. Available at: https://core.ac.uk/reader/154446440

Lawrence, S. (2011) I love China! Integrated Chinese Language and Cultural Activities for kids. CreateSpace (Amazon).

Wu, K.T. (1936) Chinese Book: Its Evolution and Development. In: T'ien Hsia Monthly, Vol. III, No.1, pp.25-33. Available at: http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/tien-hsia.php?searchterm=020_chinese_book.inc&issue=020