YCT at Meadowbank School
In November 2016, around 200 students from Years 5 and 6 at Meadowbank School sat the Youth Chinese Test (or YCT) from the Confucius Institute. In fact, Meadowbank is the first school in New Zealand to have over 200 students sit the test. Most students sat Level 1, and 17 students sat Level 2.
After completing their Mandarin speech contest in September, the students began preparing for the test. It was a good experience for them. They helped each other and had meaningful discussions about the use of language while working. The school Mandarin teacher, Amy Ko says: “It is good for children to graduate from primary school with a Mandarin test standard that is recognised worldwide. They can then take the results to their intermediate schools and carry on with the content of learning at their level. This is a great motivation for them to continue learning Mandarin in the future”. Meadowbank school sees this as a means of challenging the students and at the same time establishing benchmarks for the Mandarin language programme.
Meadowbank School became a Confucius Classroom in 2015. It has been running the Mandarin programme since 2011, and currently has 600 students learning Mandarin. Last year was the first year the school entered students into the YCT test. 31 students sat Level 1, with four students receiving 100% and 22 students achieving 85% or above. It was an excellent achievement, and the certificates were presented in a school assembly to recognise the students' effort and achievement.
Since completing the YCT test this year, students have been learning about martial arts and will have some practical experience with Kungfu masters from the Confucius Institute.
We wish the students all the best for this year’s test!
