GCSE Chinese examination preparation

No matter which language you learn, you will not be able to master it over one night. It must be a process of accumulation over time. As an ancient oriental language, learning Chinese is even more so.

In United Kingdom, all students who are studying in secondary schools would have to take the GCSE examination (General Certificate of Secondary Education) after they start their Year 10 and Year 11. According to the current GCSE Chinese examination syllabus, although only two years of Chinese study are required, as a matter of fact that at least more than three or four years of Chinese learning experience would be necessary before the student entering the GCSE examination year. Only when having a certain level of Chinese knowledge, the students would be able to start the preparation for the GCSE Chinese exam in a targeted manner.

You might have a question that what and how you would be able to benefit from our professional support in preparing yourselves effectively for the GCSE Chinese exam, especially when you already have achieved a certain level of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Well, before we moving to the next part, let us give you a general picture of the differences about the examination themes and contents between examination year 2012 and 2017. The comparison chart as shown below provides you more specific information.

 From the above comparison chart, it is clear that in the former examination system in 2012, speaking and writing tests were set as controlled assessment. In another word, under this examination system, the students could practice and take the exam repeatedly until they were satisfied with the scores they gained. The controlled assessment would be graded by the teachers from the schools and as soon as the grading was done, the test papers and the results would be sent to the examination bureau by post. Because of this examination and grading system, students were not willing to spend too much time focusing on speaking and writing. What is more, no matter for the teachers or the students, vocabularies and sentence structures were always the starting points for their teaching or learning.

However, the examination syllabus of GCSE Chinese examination has been changed since 2017. According to the new GCSE Chinese examination syllabus 2017, the grading system has been modified. What is more, the controlled assessment for speaking and writing has been cancelled from the syllabus. It seems that the difficulty of the examination has been increased under the new outlines, but when we look into the comparison chart as shown above carefully, we would find out that the themes of the examination are actually even closer to our daily life, which means the examination contents are from our daily used vocabularies and sentences. Besides, from the syllabus we could not see that the difficulties of the grammar, structures of the sentence and vocabulary requirements have been increased.

Language is considered as the fastest-growing culture from the beginning to the end. As what we all have known that the development of languages is based on the history, furthermore, as part of the culture, the usages of languages keep on growing and changing rapidly over time. Every single day, variety of vocabularies, phrases, ways of expression and so on would be regenerated and start spreading among the people.  Yet, the method may vary but the principle remains the same. As long as an effective learning method is applied, the students would be able to meet the requirements of the examination syllabus easily. Not only for passing the examination, but also for making the students ready to acquire the ability to use the language freely and precisely. The actual language level of the students would be tested and verified. And this is also the goal and the purpose of the GCSE Chinese examination syllabus 2017.

Therefore, how should we start preparing for the GCSE Chinese examination and how should we improve the language level effectively?

• Why not starting from reading.

From our point of view, reading is always the most effective way to achieve rapid improvements in language studies.

In specific, let us try to start from reading the essays which is talking about the same themes instead of following the former method of learning the vocabularies, sentence structures and grammar.  As long as you try to start from reading, you would probably find out that it might be the most effective way to have an overall sense of language through understanding how the sentences are forming, how the vocabularies are functioning in different sentences. Thurs, not only reading, but also speaking, writing and listening would be improved at the same time.

• Taking individual test after each unit.

On the other hand, a test for each unit is necessary. A completed set of test with listening, reading, writing and speaking should be arranged after finishing the course of each theme. This would be very helpful for the students to get familiar with the emphasis and process of the examination. In additional to this, the students would improve their learning efficiency under the pressure of taking the unit tests.

There is no doubt that teaching should be in accordance with each student’s aptitude. When you have a chance to follow a proper and skilful study plan with targeted guidance, you would learn more with less time.

According to the strengths and weaknesses of each student, we can offer him or her the following support and service individually:

1. A specific targeted study plan;
2. Find out the way to encourage him or her reaching the goal of improving the interest of learning;
3. A “one-to-one tutoring” program;
4. The pre-review exercises for maximizing learning efficiency;
5. Possibilities of submitting questions and handing in exercises to the teachers via the platform around-the-clock;
6. Our experienced teachers are ready to make the course schedules and curriculums upon on demands from the student individually. Course appointments are quite flexible and could be scheduled by the student;
7. Both online tutorial and face-to-face tutorial course appointments are available on our platform. By using the courses from our platform, time could be used more effectively for both students and teachers. You would not need to waste your time for transportation any longer;
8. In our platform, the literary reading courses and co-reading courses are grouped by ages or language levels. By this grouping method, students would be able to study with their peers or at the same language level, which would greatly enhance the student’s interest for learning. Meanwhile, it is helpful to make the study more efficient. The boring exam-oriented education training would be changed – by a brand new funny and vibrant reading experience.