Chinese

Staff Faculty of MFL

Staff

Miss S Cheung

Mr Chambers

Miss X Gao

Ms Aoife O'Connor

- Head of Faculty of Modern Foreign Languages

- Teacher of French & Spanish

- Teacher of Chinese and french

- Teacher of French & Spanish

KS4 Curriculum 2017-2018

Years 9, 10 & 11

In Year 9 pupils opt to take a modern foreign language, choosing from French, Spanish, Italian or Chinese. Pupils are also encouraged to sit examinations in their first language whenever possible. Over the last few years examination results have also been achieved at the highest levels in Urdu, Portuguese, Arabic, Russian, Dutch, Farsi and Polish.

Pupils follow the GCSE AQA Course (8633).

The main content areas studied are:

Themes and topics

Questions across all four language skills are set in common contexts, addressing a range of
relevant contemporary and cultural themes. They are organised into three themes, each
broken down into topics and sub-topics.

The three themes are:

Identity and Culture
The UK and the World – areas of interest
Current and Future Studies and Employment

Assessment

The GCSE (9-1) in Chinese consists of four externally examined papers based on the following skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Students will complete their speaking assessment in May and all other assessments in May/June at the end of Year 11. GCSE French has a Foundation Tier (grades 1–5) and a Higher Tier (grades 4–9). Students must take all four question papers at the same tier. All question papers must be taken in the same series.

	Paper 1: Listening and understanding	Paper 2: Speaking	Paper 3: Reading and understanding	Paper 4: Writing
Percentage of total GCSE	25%	25%	25%	25%
Assessment Type	Written exam	Internally conducted and externally assessed	Written exam	Written exam
Foundation Tier	35 minutes including 5 minutes’ reading time	7–9 minutes plus 12 minutes’ preparation time	45 minutes	1 hour
Higher Tier	45 minutes including 5 minutes’ reading time	10–12 minutes plus 12 minutes’ preparation time	1 hour	1 hour 15 minutes
Brief Description	Listening comprehension tasks with non-verbal and written responses	This unit requires learners to communicate orally in Chinese by participating in a role play, a photo card discussion and a conversation. Assessment of this unit will also take account of knowledge of, and accurate application of, grammar and structures. The three broad themes will be covered across all of the tasks.	This unit requires learners to respond to a range of questions in English and also in Chinese.	This unit requires learners to be able to communicate effectively for a variety of responses.