This week, Year 6 began an exciting language initiative in place of their French lessons. DragonsConnect, who are a Mandarin Chinese teaching company, began their first of four ‘live’ online lessons.

We are delighted to be able to give our Year 6 children this time to have a taste of the world’s most spoken language, combined with cultural studies; gaining invaluable cultural knowledge whilst simultaneously advancing in Mandarin Chinese. This is an excellent opportunity for us to not only stretch and challenge our more able linguists but also to give all our children a Mandarin Chinese ‘toolkit’ that they will be able to put into action when conversing with our partner school, HIKSVS.

The children worked online in small groups with an online teacher. To do this, they were equipped with microphones and webcams so that the lesson could be truly interactive. Following on from the ‘live’ input, the children then reinforced their learning with online games and exercises designed to follow up each lesson. DragonsConnect is known for offering quality teaching, flexibility and a high level of engagement and it was incredible to see the amount of Chinese Mandarin that they had learnt in the first hour of these lessons alone.