Year 8 Intensive Language Courses in Japanese and Chinese 2016

Last month a selected group of Year 8 students had the opportunity to participate in an intensive week of learning either Mandarin Chinese or Japanese language and culture.

These students participated in a wide range of activities ranging from normal classroom lessons to sports, cooking, dressing in traditional costumes and visits. It was impressive to see the students getting involved in Tai Chi, karate, and getting hands-on in the kitchen by preparing and tasting sushi and dumplings.

  

 





Traditional Chinese craft



 

 

Kimono workshop

 

 

 

Tai Ji Workshop

 

Karate session

 

 

 The Chinese students had the opportunity to pay a visit to Wellington College and take part in Tai Chi fan and calligraphy sessions organised especially for our students.

 

 

 

Wellington College's Chinese Centre

 

  

Calligraphy session at Wellington College's Chinese Centre

 

It was very rewarding to see the students using the language by the end of the week and the feedback received was extremely positive. The Language College will be opening the opportunity for those eager and linguistically talented students to embark on an early GCSE courses from September 2016.

HSBC/British Council Mandarin Speaking Competition 2015

 

Grace Cubin in Year 9 represented Tomlinscote school in this year’s Southern Regional Heat of the HSBC/BC Mandarin Chinese Speaking Competition, which took place on 4^th December 2015 at the British Council.

Grace was asked to prepare a two minute presentation in Mandarin on a topic from the curriculum, e.g family and friends, school, home and pets, leisure time, festivals, etc. The judges then asked her two questions in Mandarin relating to her presentation and to translate three sentences from Mandarin into English.

Well done Grace!

 

 

 

 

 

Student of the Month - January 2015

Student of the Month is back! 

Languages teachers have each nominated an outstanding student who has shown particular effort or excellent enthusiasm in the last month! 
Well done to all these fabulous linguists!

Imaan Saeed in 7P for excellent work and contributions

Luke Oldfield in 8Y for consistent hard work and excellent class participation

Callum Stennett in 9M for very hard work and enthusiasm

Alana Scott in 9K for excellent effort in Japanese mocks

Yara Mansour in 9Q for excellent effort and improved behaviour

Rachael Grey in 10X for consistent outstanding effort and achievement

Jonathan Mann in 10H for very good effort and progress

Rebecca Hill in 10Q for consistent hard work in Chinese

Emily James in 11Q for very hard work to improve her German  

Daniel Leemans in 11R for very good effort

Marcus Dainton in 11M for good progress

Navneet Brar in 11M for consistent hard work and dedication

Mandarin Chinese Intensive Courses 16th to 27th June 2014

Visit to Chinese Centre,
Wellington College,
Crowthorne,
Wednesday 18th June 2014

 Chinese Cookery






  Chinese Martial Arts

 

Students from King's International College

 

 

Happy Chinese New Year 2014!

Kung Hei Fat Choi           Happy New Year

 The Chinese New Year is celebrated in 2014 on the 31 January to welcome the Year of the Horse!

Follow this link if you want to find out about the festivities in London which take place on Sunday 2 February and include artists from China, lion teams and traditional food and craft stalls.  

http://www.visitlondon.com/things-to-do/event/4733685-chinese-new-year-2014-in-london

Mandarin Speaking Competition

6 students from Year 8 and 9 worked really hard and successfully got to the first round.

On Monday 9th December, with a great deal of excitement and a very early start, they travelled up to London (accompanied by their Chinese teacher) to perform in front of students from 14 other schools (and the judges, of course).

We hope to hear whether they have reached the final very soon.

 

 

 

 

 

WOW! What a day, from the early start with feelings of nervousness to the excitement of knowing we were competing for the chance of a place in the finals, and if successful an amazing visit to China. We all met bright and early at the Farnborough train station and made our way to London to perform at the Bloomsbury theatre. On arrival we weighed up the competition groups from all over the country. It was hard to tell as each group presented with such high standard; finally the time came for our performance. We surely gave it our all and felt confident that we had excelled. Only time will tell whether we go through to the finals or not!... fingers crossed!  

Tom Lara 9G

Participating in the HSBC Mandarin Speaking competition has improved my understanding of both the Chinese language and culture – from the scripts we received, I have managed to pick up some new vocabulary that we hadn’t covered yet in our lessons. Also, our script, like all the other entries, had contained a plot surrounding a certain part of Chinese culture (In our case it was about how boys are the favourites of grandparents) and it was interesting to see the contrast between British and Chinese family life. For days, I had practiced my lines, listening back to an audio tape to perfect my tones and accent – when I learn new vocabulary now, I have more confidence in trying to say things I’m not familiar with. Overall, the speaking competition was a great experience for me to learn more about the language and the culture behind it, and I’d recommend anyone to take up more opportunities like this in the future.

By Max Naoe, 9H.

 

Japanese and Chinese Intensive Courses

Around 90 Year 8 students (and some Year 9s) have been working hard during their Japanese and Chinese intensive courses. For two weeks, they discarded their normal timetable in order to attend all-day sessions in their foreign language, culminating in assessments at the end. Probably more fun than the tests were the several practical workshops they attended:

The Chinese learners had wok cookery lesson and and were treated to a trip to Wellington College to experience the school's new Chinese Centre, where they watched paper cutting and Taichi fan dancing demonstrations and could join in a fan dance routine.

Fan dancing practice at Wellington College

The Japanese students could try their hands at making sushi and learned about origami, producing lovely creatures by folding paper. Aided by visitors from Japan 21, an organisation promoting Japanese language and culture, they could also find out about Kimonos and try them on themselves. 

Both groups had instruction in martial arts by visiting experts!

The Japanese teachers and the samurai experts

Derek from Wutan UK teaching the Chinese students

Luckily, everyone survived the sword fighting

Beautiful origami swans

Making sushi - Don't get fish fingers...

No, you can't take them home - but they look very fetching....

Chinese New Year 2013 - the Year of the Snake

Chinese New Year is a very colourful celebration and the most important festival for Chinese people.

The dates follow the moon calendar, and the New Year could be any time between mid-January and late February. 
This year, the new year starts on the 10th of February, and it is going to be the Year of the Snake!

It's a 15-day celebration for the whole family and the house gets decorated in red and gold, because those are lucky colours. There are parades and fireworks, as well as feasts!

Many traditional dishes and decorations are based on puns:
For example, this sign means 'Fortune'. 福fú

It is written on cards and then hung upside down, because the words 'fortune upside down' sound very similar to 'fortune has arrived'.



Favourite foods for New Year are those that sound similar to good fortune, such as chicken, fish and vegetables: The Mandarin for chicken sounds like luck, fish sounds like abundance and the word for vegetables sounds like money!

If you're curious about the other traditions and the history of the New Year celebrations, watch this lovely short clip!

Happy New Year!

Fantastic Chinese Work

After just one term of Chinese lessons, Ed Thomson in 9H has managed to produce this fascinating and highly impressive piece of work, describing himself, his family, school and hobbies.
His proud teacher Mrs Cole assures us that Ed's pronunciation in Mandarin is also extremely good! Well done!

    (That's wonderful in Mandarin!!)

Merry Christmas (in five languages)

Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année!

Fröhliche Weihnachten und ein glückliches Neues Jahr!

¡Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo!

Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan!

Shinnen omedeto! Kurisumasu Omedeto!