我的中文声音
Wǒ de Zhōngwén shēngyīn — My Voice in Chinese
The exit year. Students stop practising Chinese and start having opinions in it — comparing past and present, reading media critically, and defending a position in a real debate. They leave able to enter a high-school Chinese 2 or 3 classroom without blinking.
By the end of Grade 8…
- Interpersonal: sustain a conversation on an unfamiliar topic and recover from breakdowns
- Interpretive: read authentic articles written for a general audience
- Presentational: argue a position with evidence, in speech and writing
- Reading: 900 characters — the working core of written Chinese
- Writing: 600 characters in multi-paragraph structured text
Two frames, side by side
The year’s signature skill is holding then and now in one sentence:
以前我不喜欢，但是现在我觉得很有意思。
Yǐqián wǒ bù xǐhuan, dànshì xiànzài wǒ juéde hěn yǒu yìsi. — “I used to dislike it, but now I find it interesting.” That shape — contrast plus opinion plus reason — is the backbone of every Grade 8 assessment.
6 units
从前和现在 — Then and Now
Cóngqián hé xiànzài. Describing how things and people used to be, and what changed.
未来计划 — Future Plans
Wèilái jìhuà. High school, careers and ambitions — talking about a life not yet lived.
全球文化 — Global Cultures
Quánqiú wénhuà. An independent deep dive into one Chinese-speaking place.
媒体与信息 — Media and Messages
Méitǐ yǔ xìnxī. Ads, headlines and influencers — media literacy, in Chinese.
友好辩论 — Friendly Debates
Yǒuhǎo biànlùn. Structured debate — claim, evidence, rebuttal, all in Mandarin.
作品集与结业 — Portfolio & Exit
Zuòpǐnjí yǔ jiéyè. Nine years, assembled and presented — the program’s final word.
Where this leaves a student
900 characters and Intermediate Low is a genuinely useful place to be. A graduate of this program can order food, ask directions, follow a simple news headline, message a friend, and hold a conversation about their life with a patient native speaker.
In U.S. terms, most will place into Chinese 2 or 3 in high school, and some into a fourth-year course on listening ability alone.
On debating in a second language
Unit 5 is not about winning. Students are scored on whether they restated the other side fairly before answering it — a harder skill in any language, and the one that makes the Chinese worth having. Topics are deliberately low-stakes: school uniforms, phones at the dinner table, whether homework should exist.