The Teaching and Learning of Chinese in Primary Schools in England: Developing a New Learning Approach to Support Intercultural Understanding

Abstract

Diamantidaki and Carruthers aim to provide an overview of the UCL, Institute of Education (IE) Confucius Institute (CI) for schools in promoting the teaching of Chinese in Primary and Secondary Schools in England. The authors analyse how the IOE CI developed and evolved so that in 2016 there are 200 spoke schools working with the 42 Confucius Classrooms, 3 of which are based in primary schools. Both authors underline the challenges of introducing Chinese into both sectors of schooling, including introducing a Programme of Study concerning Mandarin. The potential of comparing Mandarin with European languages seeks precision of meaning through complex grammar and vocabulary. Both authors focus on the challenges of teaching and learning, offering a new Programme of Study and suggesting new strategies in the teaching of characters and presenting culture. Both authors within the CI continue their work with informal feedback suggesting that this approach is working within a flexibility which provides the possibility for integration with other materials.