Grove Academy hosted the first face-to-face SCEN event since the pandemic. Education staff from Dundee City Council, Dundee University, teachers from Dollar Academy, Kinross High School joined staff and students from Grove Academy to celebrate the achievement of the school’s first Mandarin SQA presentations in 2021. It was great to hear students sharing their experiences and everyone was impressed by their confidence speaking Mandarin.

The programme consisted of a mixture of video and “live” presentations. Contributions from SCEN, CISS, FIDA, Barnhill Primary, CISS Alumni, and China Futures Society from the University of Edinburgh, along with the staff and students from Grove provided an afternoon of entertaining and inspiring talks.

Thanks go, in particular to, The Consul General of the People’s Republic of China, Fhiona Mackay (Director of CISS), Erin Duffy (Chair of the CISS Alumni), and SCEN Trustee James Brodie for taking the time to prepare video presentations for the event. A big thank you to Karen Liddle (CISS/SCILT), Bethany Eason, and Madeleine Gibson  (China Futures).

Further summits are planned for the spring and summer terms. If you are interested in hosting a SCEN Youth Summit get in touch with YouthVoice@SCEN.info.

Colin Mitchell
SCEN volunteer / CISS Associate

The School Perspective

Prior to October 2019 Grove Academy had almost no Mandarin provision nor any real focus on China other than a solitary unit on China in S2 Modern Studies. This all changed following the establishment of partnership links with two Chinese High Schools, one based in the city of Tangshan, a few hours outside Beijing, and the other based in Shanghai. We then explored options to maximise the potential from these partnerships but faced a number of practical barriers, for example we had no Mandarin provision within our Local Authority and were about to face the disruption of the national lockdowns.

Starting in September 2020, through support from CISS we were able to offer N4 Mandarin to a group of senior pupils. This was delivered online by a GTCS registered Mandarin teacher and proved to be hugely successful. We were also able to make use of Virtual Exchange Teachers provided by SCILT to offer taster sessions to S3 pupils as well as supporting and innovative interdisciplinary Senior Elective which resulted in the pupils producing a video introducing our school to our Chinese partners which was entirely in Mandarin. We have also built on the links with our partners through collaboration between pupils in the three schools who are involved in an engineering programme. This resulted in our first live Teams call between participants a few weeks ago. Through further support from CISS we have been able to recruit a Mandarin NQT for the start of this term and consequently we now have a Mandarin input for all S1 and S3 pupils as well as delivery of N4 and N5 Mandarin in the Senior Phase.

A key feature of the expansion of Mandarin as a part of our curriculum offer have been the support, advice, and networks we have been able to access through the Scotland China Education Network (SCEN) and the ongoing support provided by CISS.  This partnership model has been extended further through our links with Dollar Academy and their innovative FIDA program. Through this we are now piloting an S2 IDL course encompassing Mandarin and economic development.

An NQT Perspective

My name is Matthew Worlock, and I am currently an NQT teacher in Mandarin at Grove Academy, which is almost perfect timing in a way as Mandarin has only just begun to have a real presence at Grove, thanks to Grove’s participation in a virtually-taught course delivered by SCILT since 2020, and the links and partnerships made between Grove and two Chinese schools, Tangshan No. 2 High School and Nanhui High School. A very exciting time indeed!

As a result of the growing presence of Mandarin at Grove in the past year, I have become responsible for delivering various courses that either focus on working to achieve National Qualifications in Mandarin or provide ‘tasters’ in Mandarin language and Chinese culture.

I am responsible for teaching Mandarin at both National 4 and National 5 level, with National 4 being split into two classes: one which is both virtually taught by an online teacher from SCILT with additional input from me, and another that is directly taught by me.

As well as this, I teach ‘taster’ lessons to S1, introducing them to the basic foundations of the language like Chinese characters, their stroke order and pinyin, as well as simple phrases. I teach an S3 Masterclass with a much more even split between language and culture. I also facilitate and support an exciting IDL course for S2 that is taught by a Mandarin teacher at Dollar Academy, with a mixture of virtual teaching, in-person teaching, and teaching through media produced by Dollar. Finally, I deliver an S6 Elective Course which aims to provide an angle of China in the perspective of a ‘laowai’ (a friendly name for a foreigner in China!).

Considering the vastly different language they have had to master, and the steady pace of the content delivered, I am delighted to say that all of my classes have fully embraced the lessons and have been a joy to teach.

It has been an incredible honour for me to train in teaching the language that I have loved since I spotted mandarin in the 8th column of the course choice booklet all those years ago when I was at school, and while it has been very challenging at many moments of the training journey, it has nevertheless been a rewarding process for me, and I cannot wait to continue enriching my love for the language by learning to help my students fall in love with it too.

谢谢大家来听一听！

A Student Perspective

Dàjiā hǎo, wǒ de míngzì jiào Hannah Haggarty yě nǐ yǐjīng zhīdào wǒ xuéguò Nat4. Jīntiān wǒ xiǎng fēnxiǎng duì nǐmen wǒ zhōngwén jīngyàn.

Until September of last year I didn’t know any Mandarin whatsoever and it wasn’t until then that I first heard of the opportunity to learn Mandarin at Grove Academy. The opportunity felt scary in a way as there had never been the chance to learn a non-European language in my school so choosing whether or not to learn Mandarin was a bit daunting as unfortunately all I’d ever heard was that ‘it was the hardest language in the world’ and that ‘it would take years to learn’. But looking back, I can say with confidence that those assumptions are all wrong. If anything, statements like these lead me to say yes, lead me take this rare opportunity and challenge myself to try something new. However, I was still apprehensive about how well I would get on in a National Qualification of a language I had never spoken before

An additional reason for my worry was the noticeable difference between this class and any other class I’d taken before, the fact that it was entirely online. Although having some experience with online learning due to the 1st lockdown, it really did feel like I was going to be thrown in at the deep end. But to be honest there was nothing for me to be worried about at all. Every lesson was streamed live through the Confucius Institute and SCILT (Scotland’s National Centre for Languages, with direct video feed of our teacher, Mrs Zhou, beginning with starter exercises and then onto the content for the day. We moved from topic to topic comfortably with the pace adhering to our ability and readiness to move on, which I believe really helped with my confidence in Mandarin. A useful aspect of the course were the recordings of every lesson available to us on Microsoft Teams. If for example, I wasn’t able to attend the lesson or I wanted to go back through a certain section, these recordings enabled me to do so.

In my opinion the best part of the class was the wide range of content we covered. It ranged from simple greetings and dates, to directions, landmarks and countries of the world. Along with the required topics, we were always given lessons about Chinese culture and festivals. For example, the mid-autumn festival or 中秋, which traditionally celebrates the end of the autumn harvest. It is usually spent with family and friends having delicious meals together and releasing lanterns to pray for good fortune. This was all shown to us through vibrant and exciting pictures but made even more memorable with the lantern making activity that went along with it.

Of course, all of this was only possible thanks to Mrs Zhou. A teacher whose enthusiasm kept my classmates and I 100% focused on the course, whether it was team quizzes or crafts for Chinese New Year, every lesson brought me and my classmates closer together enabling us to work together in a team to help each other learn. I must admit that doing five Highers alongside Mandarin was not easy, and it was only with Mrs Zhou’s never-ending patience and constant words of encouragement that I was able to get so far. Mrs Zhou’s brilliant teaching only proved even more helpful during the spring term when once again we were put back in lockdown.

As the end of the school year grew closer our impressive progress was reflected greatly. Our approaching assessments were met only with slight nerves as our confidence had been growing from strength to strength, leaving us now sounding natural whenever we spoke. And as a further example of progress, I’d like to mention one of my classmates Emily Crawford, who won the 2021 British Council Mandarin Competition. Pretty impressive when you think just like me, she had no experience of mandarin a mere 7 months before and faced competition from pupils from some elite English private schools.

Hearing Emily had won the competition made me realise how much I had grown to love and appreciate the Mandarin language. So much so that I now hope to participate in the competition myself this year. As a result of my experience with Nat 4 Mandarin, I have begun studying Nat 5 Mandarin with an in-person teacher who has just started in our school. I know I am incredibly lucky to have an in-person mandarin teacher and am extremely grateful as it allows me to continue the language I have come to love and appreciate over the last year and a half. So much so, that I’m planning to take Mandarin one step further and pair it with my other language French to go onto study Chinese and French studies at university.