Chinese Language
Vision
At ACS (Primary), we aim at providing a holistic education that will help develop our students in all the four main areas namely Affective, Cognitive, Social and Physical. The Mother Tongue Department (Chinese Language) seeks to provide a linguistically exciting, culturally vibrant and morally positive environment for our students. We believe such a learning environment will be conducive for our students’ development in these four main areas.
Curriculum
We have also incorporated the following four initiatives that will help to maximise their learning capacity and develop them into independent learners with creative and critical thinking skills:
Differentiation – We are committed to bring out the unique potential of every pupil through curriculum differentiation. We customize our teaching resources like oral skills and comprehension skills booklets as well as pedagogies, according to the needs and ability of our students
ICT - We believe in using ICT as a value-adding tool for classroom learning. When we use ICT tools for our lessons, we expect students to engage in either Self-directed Learning or Collaborative Learning. Student learning platform such as Student Learning Space is used to support their learning. Some ICT tools used are: Nearpod, Linoit and Kahoot.
Experiential Education – We believe in taking lessons beyond the classrooms. For P1 and P2, we have Fun Days, where P1 and P2 students learn to converse in Chinese in an authentic setting.
Creativity – In order to encourage our students to become good problem-solvers and to develop critical and creative thinking skills, we have incorporated different strategies into our lessons, e.g. Make Thinking Visible.
Assessment Matters
We focus on six main core skills, namely listening skills, speaking skills, reading skills, writing skills, interactive conversational skills and interactive writing skills.
Listening and Speaking Skills
In the listening skills component, students will be trained to listen and understand texts from different genres such as short stories, novels and poetry and be able to respond to questions based on the texts. The Speaking Skills component trains students to be able to communicate in clear fluent and effective Standard Chinese Language. Our 5-year Oral Package, developed for students from P2 to P6, aims to help students to be confident in describing pictures and conversation.
Reading and Writing skills
Reading skills include the ability to read texts from different genres with understanding and to respond appropriately. The 5-year Comprehension Package developed for students from P2 to P6 aims to help students to develop different skills and techniques needed for answering open-ended comprehension questions. Our 4-year Composition writing worksheets developed for students from P3 to P6 also aims to help students to write different texts confidently.
Interactive Conversational Skills
Interactive conversational skills enable the students to respond to questions, participate in discussion, and develop others’ ideas. Interactive writing skills focus on the students’ ability to write for a specific purpose and audience.
There are various ways in which we will help students prepare for the Chinese Language assessment. Students are given practices that are similar to the examination format. This is to ensure that they learn the different skills needed for assessment and learn time-management to complete the paper within the stipulated time.
Programme (For all levels)
Primary 1 - Primary 6
Curriculum Differentiation
To cater to the learning needs of students, our learning materials such as spelling lists, oral skills package, writing skills worksheets and class practices are customized to better cater to the different learning needs of our students. For example, lower primary bridging classes have scaffolders such as hanyu pinyin in their Spelling list, and students in the enrichment classes have elaborate resources to stretch the students. The Oral Package and Writing Skills worksheets are designed for students from P3 to P6.
Primary 1 - Primary 6
Reading Programme
This programme aims to expose our students to different reading genres and to cultivate the love of reading of the Mother Tongue book. Different reading programmes are planned for respective levels. For example, for P1 and P2 after reading the story books, students will engage in various post-reading activities to gauge the understanding of their reading.
Primary 1 - Primary 6
Applied Learning Programme
This programme provides learning opportunities for students to appreciate Chinese Language and infuse fun in the Chinese learning experiences such as Reader’s Theatre, Story Telling and Drama. This develops students’ oracy skills to enable them to express themselves, understand others and embrace different perspectives.
Primary 1 - Primary 6
Mother Tongue Languages Fortnight
To provide a culturally vibrant learning environment, there are various level and school-wide activities which expose our students to the Chinese Culture and richness of the language. For example, drama, martial art, and basic drumming techniques. Through these, students learn about the significance and cultural background of the activities.
To provide a linguistically exciting environment, Primary 1 and Primary 2 students learn to converse in Chinese in an authentic setting during the P1 and P2 Fun Days.
After the activities, representatives from the various levels, including Malay and Tamil students put up a concert for the school during assembly to show case what they have learnt during the MTL Fortnight.
Primary 4 - Primary 6
Conversational Chinese/ Malay Programme
This programme aims to equip students with a foundational grasp in the Chinese or Malay Language.
Learning Support/ Stretch Programmes
Primary 3 - Primary 4
Mother Tongue Support Programme
This is a customised programme to support students in the learning of Mother Tongue Languages (MTL) in Primary 3 and 4. We believe that every child can learn the Mother Tongue Language. We hope to develop students as Active learners of MTL, Build their confidence in learning MTL, making Mother Tongue a Living language by using the language in daily life and provide Engaging and enjoyable learning experience for the students.
Primary 5 - Primary 6
Remedial Programme
Selected P5 and P6 students will attend remedial programme once every week. This programme will help our students to reinforce what was taught in class and to build up their confidence in the learning of the language.
Primary 5 - Primary 6
ACE for Oral Progamme
P5 & P6 students who need more help for oral in picture description and conversation will be selected for this programme. The students will be assessed based on a rubric and will be given feedback for areas of improvements.
Events
- Chinese New Year Celebration
- Mother Tongue Languages Presentation Day
Competitions
- 2022 National Vlog Competition for Singapore Primary School Students
- 2022 13th” Global village” Children & Youths Bilingual Speech Competition
Useful Links
