Chinese Advanced

Languages can unite or divide us. Learning another language lies at the heart of UWC mission, as the international mindedness that it entails is a force to unite people, nations and cultures. Learning about other ways of communicating, behaving, relating, thinking and being is an essential step towards understanding others and developing respect for cultural diversity. Expanding communicative skills in an additional language also fosters intercultural understanding, open-mindedness and empathy which are essential parts of the skillset of a globally aware 21st-century problem-solver and life-long learner.

• Develop both receptive and productive language skills as well as conceptual understandings in the target language in order to communicate effectively in multiple contexts, and for a variety of purposes

• Explore multimodal texts (written, audio, visual, audio-visual), artefacts, and different cultural perspectives in order to foster empathy and international mindedness

• Develop communicative and interpersonal skills, as well as information and cultural literacy, through inquiry and creative collaboration 

• Consider how the connections between languages, perspectives and cultures shape our identities 

Students will engage with conceptual themes such as identities, communication, relationships, culture and wellbeing. They will also consider linguistic concepts, such as context, audience and purpose, and engage with literary texts, and develop their capacity to make connections with all other areas of the UWCSEA learning programme : Activities, Service, Outdoor Education and Personal and Social Education. In addition, they will develop interpersonal skills through learning experiences and communicative projects that will involve thinking, research, creativity, collaboration and problem-solving.

Grade 9 Course

• Family and Community
  Change of family structures; family relationships; giving back to the community

• School Life
  Being an UWC student; pros and cons of study abroad; peer pressure and wellbeing 

• Leisure and Fashion
  Chinese popular culture; internet celebrity; health lifestyle 

Grade 10 Course

• New Technology
  New technology in communication and the impact on Chinese culture and traditions

• A Challenging World
  Globalisation; environment and sustainable development 

• Art and Literature
  Chinese movies; short stories and popular music

In this language acquisition course, students at an advanced level of Chinese will develop:

• Receptive skills: listening and reading

• Productive skills: speaking and writing

• Interactive skills: listening and speaking - responding to others

• Intercultural competence, by making connections with Chinese-speaking cultures and developing empathy and international mindedness

• Application of linguistic concepts to demonstrate conceptual understanding

• Learning skills: thinking, research, collaboration, self-management, and creativity

A varied range of formative and summative assessments will be used to evaluate students' progress in the Advanced course, including

• Vocabulary and grammar quizzes

• Oral presentations

• Group discussions, role plays and debates

• Individual orals

• Listening comprehension tasks

• Reading comprehension tasks

• Writing tasks: responses to texts and a range of text types

• End-of-year examination

Frequently Asked Questions