Mandarin Language B
That’s what billionaire American investment guru Jim Rogers believes and is doing. I think that no one has doubts that Mandarin is becoming more and more important in the modern world.
It will be a good choice for students with some previous experience of Mandarin to study Mandarin B as a Group 2 course of IB diploma program. IB Mandarin B is a foreign language learning course. The main focus is on language acquisition and development in the four primary language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. These language skills will be developed through the study and use of a range of written and spoken material. Such material will extend from everyday oral exchanges to literary texts, and will be related to the culture concerned.
Students should demonstrate competence in three distinct but interrelated areas:
- language: handling the language system accurately (grammar, syntax, etc)
- cultural interaction: selecting language appropriate to a particular cultural and social context
- message: understanding ideas and how they are organized in order to communicate them appropriately.
The aims of the IB Mandarin course are to
- enable students to understand and use the language they have studied in a range of contexts and for a variety of purposes
- enable students to use the language appropriately
- encourage, through the study of texts and through social interaction, an awareness and appreciation of the different perspectives of people from other cultures
- develop students’ awareness of the role of language in relation to other areas of knowledge
- provide the opportunity for enjoyment, creativity and intellectual stimulation through knowledge of a language
- provide students with a basis for further study, work and leisure through language
- develop students’ awareness of the relationship between the languages and cultures with which they are familiar
Assessment
| Written Component
Paper 1
Text Handling (1 hour 30 minutes)
40%
Reading (30%)
Questions based on a number of written texts
Written response (10%)
A short writing exercise in response to a written text
Paper 2
Written Production
(1 hour 30 minutes)
30%
One writing task from a choice of four |
Written Component
Paper 1
Text Handling (1 hour 30 minutes)
40%
Reading (27%)
Questions based on a number of written texts
Written response (13%)
A short writing exercise in response to a written text
Paper 2
Written Production
(1 hour 30 minutes)
30%
One writing task from a choice of six |
| Oral Component
30%
Two oral activities to be internally assessed by the teacher and externally moderated by the IBO
Individual Oral (15%)
Based on a stimulus chosen by the candidate
Interactive Oral Activity (15%)
The mark of one interactive oral activity |
Oral Component
30%
Two oral activities to be internally assessed by the teacher and externally moderated by the IBO
Individual Oral (15%)
Based on a stimulus chosen by the candidate
Interactive Oral Activity (15%)
The mark of one interactive oral activity |
Textbooks and Resources
The IB Mandarin course uses textbook Ni Hao 4 and Chinese Made Easy 4 as the main textbooks.
Appropriate texts will also be selected from newspapers, magazines and internet. Students are encouraged to read Chinese novels, listen to Chinese songs and watch TV dramas and movies.
Career Options
Students who have studied this course will have a good foundation in the language, which provides them with good opportunities to work in China on their own specialty or to do business with Chinese people in the future.
They will find it easier to overcome language barriers and better to understand Chinese culture. Chinese as a subject will be important for students who wish to study: Liberal Arts, International Relations, Bi-cultural studies, Tourism, Hospitality and Hotel Management, etc.
