Mandarin Programme

Mandarin in Our Bilingual Curriculum

Our Mandarin programme supports a range of linguistic abilities, from complete beginners to students with native-level literacy, ensuring that all students progress towards proficiency in IB Mandarin. 

Mandarin has been an important part of the bilingual curriculum ever since Dulwich College International opened its first school in Shanghai in 2003, and we are proud of our track record - 62% of our students have achieved top scores in IB Mandarin.

As part of our bilingual education programme, we offer a robust curriculum that fosters language acquisition in a nurturing environment, enabling students to excel in both Mandarin and English.

Our bilingual international school embraces the diversity of our community, ensuring that every student’s Mandarin proficiency, whether starting from scratch or possessing advanced skills, flourishes.

Mandarin Pathways

To meet the learning needs of each student, the Dulwich Mandarin curriculum employs three pathways: Mandarin A: Chinese as a Native Language, Mandarin B: Mandarin as a Second Language and Mandarin C: Mandarin as a Foreign Language.

Mandarin A (CNL): Chinese as a Native Language

Students in this pathway acquired Mandarin as their first language at home and/or in schools where Mandarin was the instructional medium. English is typically their second language. Their home environment is typically Mandarin-speaking, and they excel in Mandarin language skills, which are further nurtured through our bilingual curriculum. 

Mandarin B (MSL): Mandarin as a Second Language

This pathway is for heritage students who have been living outside of China (or other areas where Chinese is used as an official language) or non-heritage students who have been living in China and learning Mandarin for a long time. These students are able to carry out communication tasks that are age-appropriate, but may not be fully functional in their literacy skills in Mandarin. About 90% of the classroom instructions and languages used by the teacher are in Mandarin. The focus for students in this pathway is to develop their reading and writing skills, so that they can understand and analyse increasingly complex written and spoken materials and assess subtleties of the language in a wide range of forms and styles, preparing them for success in IB Mandarin and beyond. 

Mandarin C (MFL): Mandarin as a Foreign Language

This pathway is for non-native/non-heritage students. From an initial stage, the course places a greater emphasis on functional skills in listening, speaking and reading, while students in this pathway use the Wo Hui Mandarin approach and website resources to support their learning.

Practical application of these skills in authentic language settings, both inside and outside the classroom, is encouraged to foster language fluency in our Mandarin programme.

Each pathway is tailored to the individual needs of students, ensuring they build a strong foundation for success in Mandarin, regardless of their starting point.

Dual Language Learning in DUCKS: Mandarin Education Programme

From the age of two, preschool students in DUCKS benefit from being exposed to Mandarin throughout the day, courtesy of the Chinese co-teacher who works in partnership with the class teacher to deliver a dual language programme. This bilingual education programme focuses on all aspects of the curriculum as well as interactions, storytelling and role play in the development of the children's listening and speaking skills in Mandarin with literacy for children who show a readiness for this learning.

Dual Language Learning Approach at Our Preschool

Dual Language learning is a fundamental part of our student development and to enhance this approach children from Reception to Year 2 children have additional daily differentiated Mandarin lessons for up to an hour.

Our Mandarin programme approach is based upon a range of recognised theory about how children learn language and has been developed through in-depth academic and action research by our own leaders and teachers. The Mandarin programme exposes young learners to English and Mandarin in their natural learning context throughout the day as well as formal language opportunities.

By providing an environment rich in learning opportunities, with one teacher focusing on English and a second on Mandarin, young children gain the confidence to use language with meaning rather than just through imitation. This dual language approach supports the development of IB Mandarin proficiency in later stages. 

Wohui Mandarin Programme

All our Mandarin teachers participate in a biannual DCI Mandarin Conference, and have been involved in developing our pioneering Mandarin curriculum, including our unique Wo Hui Mandarin programme for Mandarin C students.

Approach to Mandarin Learning: Wo Hui Method

In following Dulwich College International’s motto, detur pons mondo, or building bridges to the world, our educators set out to build bridges between Chinese and non-Chinese worlds. “Wo Hui” Mandarin is a new method of teaching Chinese which seeks to overcome the difficulties that students experience when using more traditional methods. The most obvious difference between the Wo Hui Mandarin course and the standard courses is that speaking and listening and reading and writing are taught separately and with different content. In Wo Hui, characters are introduced in terms of their simplicity and their frequency of use, thus enabling students to rapidly build up a useful and powerful bank of characters. Another important departure from standard methods is to treat the individual character as the fundamental unit of meaning. The strapline for the Wo Hui Mandarin course is “It’s not what you know, but what you can do with what you know”. Perhaps the most important difference in approach is that the emphasis in learning is not on rote memorisation but on the active use of the language learned.

Whether starting their Mandarin education journey in DUCKS or advancing through the stages of our Mandarin curriculum, students at Dulwich College (Singapore) are equipped to thrive in a bilingual world.