Book a Free Trial Lesson with us or join our GCSE Chinese Online Prep Classes
Themes and topics
Questions across all four language skills are set in common contexts, addressing a range of relevant contemporary and cultural themes. They are organised into five themes, each broken down into topics and sub-topics. The five themes are:
1. Identity and culture
2. Local area, holiday, travel
3. School
4. Future aspirations, study and work
5. International and global dimension.
All themes and topics must be studied in the context of both the students’ home country and that of countries and communities where Chinese is spoken.
For listening and reading assessments, the majority of contexts are based on the culture and countries where the assessed language is spoken. Students may also refer to the culture of the assessed language country/countries or communities in the speaking and writing papers. It is, therefore, important that students are exposed to materials relating to Chinese speaking countries throughout the course.
Theme 1: Identity and culture
● Who am I?: relationships; when I was younger; what my friends and family are like; what makes a good friend; interests; socialising with friends and family; role models
● Daily life: customs and everyday life; food and drink; shopping; social media and technology (use of, advantages and disadvantages)
● Cultural life: celebrations and festivals; reading; music; sport; film and television
Theme 2: Local area, holiday and travel
● Holidays: preferences; experiences; destinations
● Travel and tourist transactions: travel and accommodation; asking for help and dealing with problems; directions; eating out; shopping
● Town, region and country: weather; places to see; things to do
Theme 3: School
● What school is like: school types; school day; subjects; rules and pressures; celebrating success
● School activities: school trips; events and exchanges
Theme 4: Future aspirations, study and work
● Using languages beyond the classroom: forming relationships; travel; employment
● Ambitions: further study; volunteering; training
● Work: jobs; careers and professions
Theme 5: International and global dimension
● Bringing the world together: sports events; music events; campaigns and good causes
● Environmental issues: being ‘green’; access to natural resources
Content
Students are assessed on their ability to communicate and interact effectively through speaking in Chinese for different purposes.
Students will need to:
● convey information and narrate events coherently and confidently, using and adapting language for different purposes
● speak spontaneously, responding to unpredictable questions, points of view or situations, sustaining communication by using rephrasing or repair strategies, as appropriate
● use a range of vocabulary and grammatical structures accurately, including some more complex forms, with reference to past, present and future events
● make creative and more complex use of the language, as appropriate, to express and justify their own thoughts and points of view
● use accurate pronunciation and intonation in order to be understood by a native speaker, however they will be able to access the highest marks available for each task without a ‘perfect’ command of Chinese.
These are assessed through a series of three consecutive tasks.
Task 1 – Role play
The role play is an interaction requiring the student to ask and answer questions, to exchange information and to use different registers (see definition of registers beneath the Role play mark grid within the marking guidance section of the specification). The role play relates to either formal or informal scenarios, in turn inviting the student to use either formal or informal language relevant to the scenario.
Each role play stimulus card includes an instruction to the student on whether to use language appropriate for a formal or informal conversation.
The role plays are set and provided by Pearson at the time of assessment together with a sequencing grid and instructions. For an example, please see the Pearson Edexcel Level 1/Level 2 GCSE (9–1) in Chinese (spoken Mandarin/spoken Cantonese) Sample Assessment Materials (SAMs) document – Paper 2: Speaking in Chinese, General instructions to the teacher section.
Scenarios require an exchange of information. Some scenarios are transactional in nature.
The scenarios are based on any of the topics from themes 1 to 4 (listed on page 9), i.e. not on the theme International and global dimension as this theme lends itself better to the picture-based task and the conversation.
Task 2 – Picture-based task
The assessment scenario is based on any of the topics (listed on page 9). The topic is allocated by Pearson at the time of assessment together with a sequencing grid and instructions. For an example, please see the Pearson Edexcel Level 1/Level 2 GCSE (9–1) in Chinese (spoken Mandarin/spoken Cantonese) Sample Assessment Materials (SAMs) document – Paper 2: Speaking in Chinese, General instructions to the teacher section.
This assessment allows students to:
● describe and narrate events
● give information
● express, justify and exchange opinions.
Students are required to refer to past, present and future events in this assessment at both Foundation and Higher tiers, using different timeframes.
Task 3 – Conversation
The conversation allows students to cover all of the requirements outlined in the Content section on page 12, including conveying information, giving points of view, developing and initiating conversation and discussion and producing extended sequences of speech.
The conversation is based on any two themes (see Themes and topics) and is in two parts.
For the first part of the conversation, the student selects one topic from one theme in advance of the assessment. The choice of topic must be agreed between the student and the teacher and must be selected no later than two weeks before the assessment takes place. This part of the conversation task starts with this first topic and then may move on to other topics within the same theme.
The second part of the conversation must be on a different theme. This will be prescribed by Pearson through instructions on a sequencing grid. For an example please see the Pearson Edexcel Level 1/Level 2 GCSE (9–1) in Chinese (spoken Mandarin/spoken Cantonese) Sample Assessment Materials (SAMs) document – Paper 2: Speaking in Chinese, General instructions to the teacher section.
This part of the conversation may focus on one or more topics from within the selected theme (see page 9).
Students are required to refer to past, present and future events in this assessment, using a range of timeframes.