UCL-PKU in partnership to transform teaching Mandarin in English schools

UCL in partnership with Peking University (PKU) is leading a transformation in the teaching of Mandarin in England's classrooms with the aim of giving every secondary school the chance to offer the language alongside the traditional staples of French, Spanish and German. Some 9,000 students in 45 Confucius classrooms established by the UCL Institute for Education (IOE) Confucius Institute are now studying Chinese on the curriculum with about 3,500 entries for Chinese GCSE in 2016, representing a rise of 70% since 2008. The IOE Confucius Institute is a bilateral collaboration between UCL, PKU and Peking University High School, both training teachers and masterminding the expansion of Chinese language teaching in schools; - There are now 37 schools across England participating in the Government's Mandarin Excellence Programme run by the IOE Confucius Institute in partnership with the British Council. Progress test results showed the first cohort of Year 7 pupils (11/12 year-olds) achieved marks of at least 80% across specially-created tests in reading, writing, listening and speaking. The pupils on the programme spend an average of eight hours a week studying the language, half taught in the classroom and half in their own study time, which is more than would be normally spent in school on a language. Year 7 pupils would usually learn a language for just one to two hours per week. The programme aims to have 5,000 pupils on track to be fluent in the language by 2020.