By Ibu Bonita

During this unit, Mandarin was integrated through the key concept of ‘change’. Students have been exploring how changing the stroke order affects the form of the Chinese character (hanzi) and their writing skills as well.

Initially, students were asked to use writing brushes to write various hanzi of their choice, (from the options given). Then they engaged in a reflection process to discover whether or not they had written the hanzi in a consistent and appropriate order.

After that, students conducted an in-depth inquiry into how to write their chosen characters in the appropriate order using various resources. Their newly acquired knowledge and understanding were then used to write the same hanzi again.

Finally, students were able to reflect on their learning process and examine how their writing skills had benefited.

Students demonstrated the IB learner profile attributes of ‘inquirer’ and ‘reflective’ during this learning engagement.