从前和现在
Cóngqián hé xiànzài — Then and Now
The final year opens with its signature skill: holding two time frames in one sentence. How things used to be, how they are now, and — crucially — what the student thinks about the difference.
Contrast, plus opinion, plus reason
This shape is the backbone of every Grade 8 assessment:
以前我不喜欢读书，但是现在我觉得很有意思。
Yǐqián wǒ bù xǐhuan dú shū, dànshì xiànzài wǒ juéde hěn yǒu yìsi. — “I used to dislike reading, but now I find it really interesting.” Three years of structures in one sentence: past marking, contrast connector, opinion verb.
Unit objectives
- Describe how they themselves have changed since childhood
- Describe how technology or society has changed in a generation
- Use 曾经 and 越来越 for gradual change
- State whether a change was for the better, with reasons
Key vocabulary
从前 曾经 越来越 变得 进步 传统 现代 一代 幸好 可惜
Two time frames at once
When I was small
Personal change — what they liked, feared and believed at six, and what they think of that now.
Technology in one generation
What their parents’ teenage years looked like without smartphones. Interviewing is encouraged.
More and more
越来越 for gradual change — a construction with no neat English equivalent.
Better or worse?
Judging a change rather than just reporting it — and defending the judgement.
Tradition and modernity
Where old and new sit side by side in Chinese life — and whether that’s tension or coexistence.
How I’ve changed
A reflective piece of 12–15 sentences, which becomes the opening entry of the exit portfolio.
Three generations, three different countries
A Chinese teenager’s grandparents may have grown up in a village with no electricity; their parents in a city of bicycles and state work units; and they themselves in a high-rise with same-day delivery and cashless payment — all in the same family, all within about sixty years. Few societies have compressed that much change into living memory. It gives this unit unusually good material: the grandparents are still there to be asked, and the gap between their answers and the student’s own life is enormous.
Unit 1 progress check
A light, no-pressure way to see what’s sticking:
- Can your child contrast past and present in one sentence?
- Do they add an opinion rather than only reporting the change?
- Can they use 越来越 correctly?
The three-part sentence is the year’s single most important structure. Everything from here builds on it.