Sweden Åk 8 Curriculum - Modern Languages (Chinese)

This course entry is based on the curriculum document provided by Skolverket (Swedish National Agency for Education).

Course Aim:

The aim of the Modern Languages - Chinese course is to develop students' proficiency in Mandarin Chinese, focusing on communication skills and cultural understanding. Students will develop their ability to understand, speak, read, and write in Chinese, while also gaining knowledge about areas and contexts where the language is used. The course aims to build students' confidence in using the language in various situations and for different purposes.

Central Content (Grades 4-9, within the framework of the student's choice, Chinese):

• Communication Content:
• Subject areas familiar to the students.
• Interests, everyday situations, people, and places.
• Everyday life and lifestyles in different contexts and areas where Chinese is used.
• Opinions and feelings.
• Everyday life, lifestyles, and social relations in different contexts and areas where Chinese is used.
• The spread of Chinese in the world.
• Listening and Reading - Reception:
• Clearly spoken language that is instructive and descriptive, for example from different media and in combination with illustrations.
• Different forms of dialogues and conversations.
• Songs and rhymes.
• Narratives and other fiction, including dramatized forms, as well as songs and rhymes.
• Information and messages.
• Strategies for perceiving phonemes, tones, and meaningful words, and for drawing conclusions about the content.
• Linguistic phenomena in the language students encounter, with emphasis on pronunciation and basic sentence structures.
• How words and everyday phrases are used in different situations.
• Pinyin as a support for understanding the spoken language students encounter.
• Speaking, Writing, and Conversing - Production and Interaction:
• Simple presentations, instructions, messages, and descriptions.
• Presentations, instructions, messages, and descriptions in coherent speech.
• Strategies for solving language problems in conversations, such as reformulations, gestures, and questions.
• Linguistic phenomena to clarify and enrich communication, with emphasis on pronunciation and intonation, as well as words, polite phrases, and other fixed linguistic expressions.
• Pinyin as a means of developing students' spoken language, including pronunciation and vocabulary.
• Reading - Reception (Simplified Chinese Characters):
• Simple texts that are descriptive, for example from different media and in combination with illustrations.
• Simple messages and written dialogues.
• Different aids for reading, such as pinyin, synthetic speech, and electronic dictionaries.
• The origin, use, and structure of simplified characters in the texts students encounter, including principles for stroke order and analysis of character components.
• Writing - Production and Interaction (Simplified Chinese Characters):
• Simple texts, such as presentations, messages, and written dialogues.
• How common characters relevant to the content of communication are written by hand, including stroke order.
• Pinyin and other aids, including digital ones, that support written production and interaction.

Grade 9 Knowledge Requirements:

The knowledge requirements are categorized into three levels: E (basic), C (intermediate), and A (advanced). These requirements cover listening comprehension, oral production and interaction, reading comprehension, written production and interaction, and cultural reflection. The document details specific skills students should achieve at each level by the end of grade 9. For example, at level E, students should be able to understand common words and simple phrases in clearly spoken, simple Chinese at a slow pace about everyday and familiar topics. At level A, they should be able to understand the main content and essential details in clearly spoken Chinese at a slow pace about everyday and familiar topics. They should also be able to formulate themselves clearly and coherently in oral presentations. Similar requirements are outlined for reading and writing skills. Students are also expected to reflect on cultural phenomena in different contexts where Chinese is used, comparing them with their own experiences and knowledge.