CDU Confucius Institute
The CDU Confucius Institute is a joint program supported by the Government and the People’s Republic of China to strengthen education and cooperation between Australia and China.
Larrakeyah Primary School’s partnership with the CDU Confucius Institute provides students with access to broader experiences that help them not only learn Mandarin, but also understand Chinese culture.
We commenced Chinese language lessons in 2015 with one Year 3 class. This program was then expanded during 2015 to include all Year 3 students. The Chinese language lessons were very positively received by students, staff and parents, and so, in 2016, the program expanded further to include year 2 and year 4 students. 2017 saw the program expand to years 2- 5.
In 2022, all students from Preschool – 6 now learn Chinese through Darwin Language Centre or the Confucius Institute. Learning a second language has been shown to aid in childhood development and even improve performance in other areas of learning.
Mandarin is the most widely spoken language worldwide. Here are some more interesting facts:
1. China is one of the world’s oldest and richest continuous cultures, over 5000 years old.
2. China is the most populous nation in the world, with 1.28 billion people.
3. One fifth of the planet speaks Chinese. Mandarin Chinese is the mother tongue of over 873 million people, making it the most widely spoken first language in the world.
4. International businesses prefer to hire people who speak more than one language. China has become a huge market, and business leaders are looking for people who can speak Chinese and operate successfully in a Chinese cultural context.
5. China will play a major role in world affairs in the future. As China now has opened up to the West, there are opportunities for employment in all areas.
6. In addition to the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan, Mandarin Chinese is also spoken in the important and influential Chinese communities of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines, and Mongolia.
7. China is the second largest economy in the world.
The study of the Chinese language opens the way to different fields such as Chinese economy, history or archaeology. To study Chinese means to study a culture, a people. At the heart of Chinese civilization is its rich heritage of novels, short stories, poetry, drama, and, more recently, film. They reflect the values, the struggles, the sensibility, the joys and the sorrows of this great people and often offer insights into the most intimate feelings of the people. These works help you understand what is behind the language, what makes it powerful, and how it actually functions in Chinese society. To be at ease and effective in a Chinese environment learning the language is half the battle, but knowing about the culture behind the language is the other.
Some surprising facts
Chinese has a relatively uncomplicated grammar. Unlike French, German or English, Chinese has no verb conjugation (no need to memorize verb tenses!) and no noun declension (e.g., gender and number distinctions). For example, while someone learning English has to learn different verb forms like “see/saw/seen,” all you need to do in Chinese is just to remember one word: kan. While in English you have to distinguish between “cat” and “cats,” in Chinese there is only one form: mao. (Chinese conveys these distinctions of tense and number in other ways, of course.)
The basic word order of Chinese is subject — verb — object, exactly as in English. A large number of the key terms of Mandarin Chinese (such as the terms for state, health, science, party, inflation, and even literature) have been formed as translations of English concepts. You are entering a different culture, but the content of many of the modern key concepts is familiar.
- Currently Mandarin Chinese is spoken by over 1 billion people around the world, about one fifth of the global population;
- Each year more and more students around the world whose mother tongue is not Mandarin are studying it with enthusiasm and success. If they all can learn it, so can your child!
The study of Chinese literature and culture will help you bridge the cultural gap, better understand your Chinese counterparts, and create a platform of knowledge and understanding with them that is crucial for effective communication.
