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Hi Liqun, Thanks a lot for your reply. I agree with your point about motivation and confidence. I hope Fortismere can produce a Louis Carmichael, as I remember you did… Best wishes, Adam From: Mandarin Chinese Teaching [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of L. Dai Sent: 15 December 2015 09:18 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Choosing Mandarin Hi Adam, If you think your school's way of choosing Mandarin is quite inaccurate, see how we do in my school: Top set in Y7 (based on their KS2 English and Math results) are put in two equal groups doing one of the three languages we offer. In some years, to make up staff's timetable, I have lower ability groups too. So no one chose to do Mandarin. The school is located in one of the most deprived areas in UK. You can imagine what the lessons would be like. However, I managed to motivate almost all of them, the first GCSE results are very good. This year, the school allowed ( for the first time in history) Y9 students in either French or Spanish groups to choose Mandarin (means they would have to give up French or Spanish), so I have a small group of students who chose to do Chinese, the progress they made was absolutely amazing. But I also think their previous two years experience with a foreign language helped tremendously. From my experience, the students who have had some experience of leaning a foreign language and choose to do one are the ones likely to make very good progress. But reality often go against this. Motivation and confidence are the two key factors for success, luckily, we as teachers have the power to give both to any student. Kind regards and have a lovely Christmas, Liqun On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 8:32 AM, Mr A. Moorman <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: 老师们好！ I am hoping you can help by answering a couple of questions regarding how students choose (or are chosen) to study Mandarin in your schools. In our school, students take a test in French or Spanish at the end of term 1 in year 7, and those with the highest scores are offered the choice to study Mandarin. To me, this seems quite an inaccurate way to measure someone’s suitability for Mandarin study, and we often end up with students who score well on this setting test, but then find studying Mandarin very hard. I am hoping to collect experiences from other schools, to show our school some alternatives to the current system and hopefully begin a reform. Therefore, if you can answer the following questions I would really appreciate it. Please reply to [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> 1. Do students at your school choose Mandarin freely, or is there some kind of selection procedure? 2. When, and how, does this procedure take place? 3. Do you think your school’s method for choosing Mandarin students is successful? Why? 4. What changes would you recommend to the system? 祝大家圣诞快乐！ Adam Moorman 马安德 Language Teacher 语言教师 -- Liqun Dai Confucius Classroom Manager MFL Archbishop Sentamu Academy 1 Bilton Grove Hull HU9 5YB 01482 781912 * * * Think about the environment - Do you really need to print this email? ********************************************************************** This message is sent in confidence for the addressee only. It may contain confidential or sensitive information. The contents are not to be disclosed to anyone other than the addressee. Unauthorised recipients are requested to preserve this confidentiality and to advise us of any errors in transmission. Any views expressed in this message are solely the views of the individual and do not represent the views of Archbishop Sentamu Academy. Nothing in this message should be construed as creating a contract. Archbishop Sentamu Academy owns the email infrastructure, including the contents. Archbishop Sentamu Academy is committed to sustainability, please reflect before printing this email. **********************************************************************