A Calcutta Cup for Mandarin

Let English and Scottish students both take the SQA Advanced Higher in Mandarin, this teacher of Chinese throws down the gauntlet and propose an educational version of the Calcutta Cup, updated for the 21st century

As a practising teacher of Mandarin Chinese in an English secondary school, the recent webinar hosted by GTC Scotland entitled “Taking Forward Mandarin in Scottish Schools” provided considerable food for thought. Much of the discussion resonated with my own experience South of the border.

Clearly, learning Mandarin at both the primary and secondary school levels is now much more of a realistic option for students in both Scotland and England than it was ten years ago. This fact should be celebrated.  

Yet much remains to be done before Mandarin can take up its rightful place as a full member of the ‘MFL family’, equal in status to more commonly taught European languages such as French and Spanish. 

The intrinsic nature of the Chinese language poses Anglophone learners with some significant challenges. This is not simply a result of its non-alphabetic script and tonal system, but can also be traced to the numerous homophones and lack of English cognates.

Another issue remains the dearth of research into the teaching and learning of Mandarin at the school level. Very little is known about the nature of the learning that Mandarin demands of young Anglophone beginners which have contributed to high attrition rates and general weakness in pedagogy.

Such challenges are being tackled head-on with a handful of Scottish and English universities now offering PGDE/PGCE teacher trainer courses in Mandarin, as opposed to more generic courses. There is growing evidence that when Mandarin is taught by accredited teachers with adequate curriculum time, learners from all backgrounds can make progress.

One area where Scotland is ahead of England is in the provision of highly accessible exams aimed at non-native learners of Mandarin. I am referring specifically to the relatively smooth learning journey from National 5s to Advanced Highers offered by the SQA. Pupils in England, conversely, will be left with few options post-GCSE once the Cambridge Pre-U Mandarin exam stops being offered after 2023.

One obvious short-term solution would be to allow English students to take the SQA Advanced Higher Mandarin qualification in the same way that Scottish pupils can take A-Levels. When this issue was raised at the seminar, it was met with silence. Apparently, Scottish National Qualifications can only be taken in Scotland. But no one could really tell why.

So let me throw down the gauntlet and propose an educational version of the Calcutta Cup, updated for the 21st century. Let English and Scottish students both take the Advanced Higher in Mandarin and let’s see who gets the better results. After Scotland recently recorded their first victory at Twickenham in 38 years, the English are out for revenge. But perhaps the real winner will be the wider field of Chinese teaching in the UK.

Rob Neal is Co-ordinator of Swire Chinese Language Centre Manchester.

Rob Neal throws down the gauntlet and propose an educational version of the Calcutta Cup, updated for the 21st century