1. Which assessment objectives will your learners find most difficult?
AO1 Listening: For many students, listening can be particularly challenging because Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language. Misinterpreting a tone can change the meaning of a word entirely, making comprehension difficult, especially for beginners or those not immersed in a Chinese-speaking environment.
AO3 Speaking: Speaking might also be difficult due to the pronunciation of tones and the accuracy required to communicate effectively. Learners often struggle with confidence in speaking Mandarin and applying the correct grammar and structures spontaneously.
AO4 Writing: The complexity of Chinese characters and the need to remember stroke order, radicals, and combinations of characters can also make writing challenging for students who are more familiar with alphabetic writing systems.
2. How will you develop your learners' skills?
AO1 Listening:
I would incorporate a variety of listening exercises, such as dialogues, podcasts, and videos, with a focus on different accents and speech speeds. For instance: You Glish
Regular dictation exercises and interactive listening tasks can help students improve their comprehension of spoken Mandarin. For instance: Edpuzzle
AO2 Reading: To enhance reading skills, I will provide graded reading materials and encourage extensive reading. This will range from simple texts to more complex articles, incorporating a mix of modern and classical Chinese literature to expose learners to diverse language usage.
AO3 Speaking: To improve speaking skills, focus on practical communication like role-playing, presentations, and conversation practice with native speakers (through language exchanges). Giving feedback on pronunciation, tone, and sentence structure is key.
For example, I let students choose a short video related to the topic and use Canva to re-edit the video. Students act out scenes from the video, write the subtitles in Mandarin, and record their voices as the characters. This helps them practice speaking clearly, using the right tones, and connecting spoken language with written Chinese. This activity also makes speaking practice more fun and engaging.
AO4 Writing: To develop writing skills, I will implement consistent practice through journaling, writing short stories, and responding to prompts. Breaking down the learning of Chinese characters into manageable sections—such as radicals and word families—will help students understand the logic behind character formation. Peer feedback and model answers will help students refine their writing style.
3. Which assessment objectives might you find challenging to teach?
AO1 Listening: Teaching listening might be challenging due to the vast range of regional accents and speaking speeds. Ensuring that students are exposed to authentic listening materials from different regions of China or Taiwan can sometimes be logistically difficult, but it's essential for their growth.
AO3 Speaking: Encouraging students to actively speak and overcome their shyness or fear of making mistakes can be another challenge. Helping learners gain confidence to engage in conversation, especially with native speakers, is essential but may take time and patience.
4. How will you share the assessment objectives with your learners?
I would clearly share the assessment objectives at the beginning of the course and refer back to them throughout the lessons.
Every time I make sure to break down each objective into smaller, more manageable tasks and explain how they are integrated into our daily lessons and activities. I also include group discussion questions that connect the objectives to real-life experiences and help build higher-order thinking skills.
Creating visual aids, such as posters or digital slides, outlining each AO and showing examples of what excellent performance looks like for each one. I would also provide rubrics and grading criteria early on so that students know exactly how they will be assessed in each category.
By aligning classroom activities, homework, and assessments with these AOs, students will be consistently reminded of the skills they are working on and the standards they need to meet.
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