Spoken Chinese

ChineseHomework.ie is a one stop shop for your core Mandarin language lessons. As we focus on communicative language first our students' motivation builds from lesson to lesson. Our solution encourages independent learning while creating a teamwork atmosphere during in-class Task Based Language Learning activities.

Transition Year Student Pilot

Language

TY Chinese is typically designed to give a "Flavour of Chinese Language and Culture". This is insufficient to allow students choose Chinese for their Leaving Certificate.

Last year we ran our first pilot for TY students. Our goal was to enable students to choose Chinese for their Leaving Certificate without fear of how hard it might be.

To achieve this our pilot needed to be a serious course of study with a broad window into Chinese society and culture with a language component leading to HSK 3. All in just one year.
We knew from our success with IrishHomework.ie that taking a focus on communicative language, keeping to small vocabulary sets and ensuring every student has sufficient practice time gives a very efficient learning curve.

Our expectations were exceeded despite a three month break in the middle of the year with everyone achieving HSK 3 in 7 months of study.
This equates to completing the Leaving Cert Chinese language component at CEFR A1 which is the expected level according to the Chinese Leaving Certificate Specification.

Culture

Language of course is only part of the picture. We gave 40% of our class time to learning about Chinese society and culture.
Aside from the cultural content inherent in our lessons, cultural understanding remains under the guidance of the individual teacher. All our lessons are based on communication and in general deal with daily interactions in modern Chinese society. We also have some graded reading of classic literature such as The Rise of the Monkey King and Mulan. These are very accessible using our platform. (Students can read without getting stuck)

Pilot Requirements

Please consider the following requirements for running a pilot class:

1. Maintain a flipped class using ChineseHomework.ie as your sole language content. This should be suplimented only by related cultural content of your choosing. It's critical not to introduce new language beyond the content of the current lesson.
2. Adhere closely to the guidance in our teacher training. You'll need to complete the training before agreeing to the pilot. (You can register and view the training material before deciding to run a pilot.)
3. Your pilot class should be a TY class of volunteer students.
4. Maintain monthly contact with our coordinator at ChineseHomework.ie
5. Students should expect to take HSK 1 after 10 weeks, HSK 2 at 22 weeks and HSK 3 in July having passed at least one mock test in advance of each.
6. A minimum of two assessment projects should be produced, after achieving HSK 2. You can follow the guidelines in the Chinese Leaving Certificate Specification. We would suggest a video of students delivering their own cultural research on a topic through Chinese, individually or in pairs.

Please note that our research partners Groningen University (The Netherlands) and Trinity College Dublin will be completing a collaborative project with us regarding the integration of Task Based Language Learning into our current platform. This will be implemented during December of this year and will assist you substantially with your Task Based Activities during class. In the meantime you can rely on our existing teacher training material to show you how to do these Task Based Activities.

Outcomes

We anticipate a large cohort of students will have gained a very strong grounding in Chinese Language and Culture allowing them to choose it confidently for their Leaving Certificate.
The expectation is to have a clear dataset proving the efficacy of ChineseHomework.ie as a flipped classroom solution.

Getting Started with ChineseHomework.ie

1. Watch the Quick Tour walk-through from Our Homepage
2. Create an account and Log in to get access to our training pages.
3. Read the About Us, FAQ and complete our training modules.

In addition to completing the online training you will need to join us on a Zoom call for an orientation session.
During your orientation session with us we'll guide you through setting up your class and setting your first lesson and also how to easily get started with your in-class activities.

Contact Us through the link below.