Years 5 and 6 Band Description
The nature of the learners
Students use their bilingual and bicultural capabilities and understandings within the world of their own experience and imagination and draw on some topics from other learning areas. They are extending their knowledge of language structure and of texts.
Chinese language learning and use
Students are immersed in Chinese across speaking, listening, reading, writing and viewing; where practicable, activities may include those designed collaboratively with teachers in other learning areas to provide opportunities for translating or interpreting. Students speak and write in Chinese to express their own interests. They begin to appreciate how their own language use compares to modern standard forms in terms of pronunciation, tone and rhythm. They consciously use aspects of grammar in their language learning and employ a range of implicit and explicit models in response to teacher prompting. They consider audience, purpose, and appropriate language choices in their cultural and communicative practices.
Contexts of interaction
Students actively communicate in Chinese in classroom, school, home and community environments. They begin to interact with other language users via the online environment and other digital forums.
Texts and resources
Students engage with visual media, music, cartoons, stories, games and documentaries. They use multimedia for researching, exploration and collaboration. They create a range of short imaginative, informative and persuasive texts.
Features of Chinese language use
Students learn to analyse new characters encountered in texts, with a focus on mapping these character forms to their known spoken language. Students make comparisons between societies, social structures and belief systems and explore how these are conveyed through language. They discover and discuss diversity in cultural identity and experience. Students explore the Chinese past through texts such as fables and classical stories. Written language use includes reading and comparing Chinese and English children’s literature.
Level of support
Correct Chinese language use continues to be modelled by the teacher to support students’ oracy and literacy development. Texts often have Pinyin glossaries or include vocabulary lists to support learning.
The role of English
English is used to compare languages and explore complex ideas related to language, culture, learning and concepts from other learning areas.
