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Certificate in Business Chinese at Our Lady’s Convent High School
'The Business Chinese course has helped those students who have less motivation or lower ability, it has offered an alternative way for them rather than taking the GCSE exam.' Pascale Schlecht, Head of MFL
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Context
A Tradition of Excellence Today, Our Lady's is a thriving voluntary aided Roman Catholic school for 780 students aged 11-18 which has been awarded specialist status as a Language College.
The school has a well-deserved reputation for academic achievement, and it strives continually both to maintain and raise its standards, under the continuing trusteeship of the Servite Sisters.
Our Lady's Convent High school became a Language College in September 1998. As a specialist language college, the students have opportunities to learn Spanish, French and Mandarin Chinese during curriculum time, and they are also able to learn a wide range of languages in twilight sessions, including Italian, Japanese, Polish and British Sign Language, etc.
Key objectives
To introduce an appropriate form of accreditation in Chinese for students in Years 9 and 12.
How the programme is organised
During academic year 2006-2007, the school started to offer the Gowell Entry Level Chinese course, leading to the ICAAE Entry Level Business Chinese to a group of Year 9 students. There are 14 girls in the group and all of them have been learning Mandarin Chinese since year 7. They chose to learn Chinese at the end of Year 7 with the aim of preparing for the GCSE. However, by the end of Year 8, they found it very hard to read and write Chinese characters. Although most of them are still interested in learning Chinese and found it interesting and easy in terms of listening and speaking. Their lack of ability with reading and writing prevents them from taking the GCSE exam, since the exam tests four skills. Therefore, it was decided to offer the Business Chinese course to them. Moreover, the course materials were delivered online, through the GoChinese platform, with part of the internal assessment electronically assessed.
Since September 2007 Business Chinese has also been offered to year 12 students both at Our Lady’s and nearby Alexandra Park School who have never studied Mandarin Chinese before. In all, there are 30 year 12 students doing this course. All of these students are very keen to travel to China and show great interest in Chinese culture.
Results/effect
Last year, 11 out of 14 pupils from the Y9 group received the certificate. Among them, 2 achieved a distinction and 5 a merit. Furthermore, two girls from this group realised their potential in learning Chinese, so they decided to take Chinese as their GCSE subject.
Student feedback to the programme has been extremely positive. One student said, 'The Business Chinese course has given a good opportunity to those students like me, who are interested in Chinese, but not good at reading and writng Chinese characters. Being able to get a certificate in the end, especially a distinction level, has really built up my confidence.'
Sharing good practice with other schools is one of the responsibilities of the language college. This year the school has helped another local school to set up Business Chinese course and provided a teacher for them as well. So far the students there have showed great interest.
Future developments
The school is considering offering this course to other local high schools. It is also planned to contact the high schools in Haringey Council as the course has proved popular with the six formers in nearby Alexandra Park School.
It is planned to build a resource bank for this new course, especially for the culture input part.
Authors: Shan Li and Li Chen, Chinese teachers
