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3 Draft Leaving Certificate specifications consultations

3 Draft Leaving Certificate specifications consultations

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Overview: Course

This is a course in Chinese Language and Culture for the non-native speaker, with approximately 70% weighting towards language and 30% towards culture.

The four strands are organised around domains of language use that are seen as potentially relevant and meaningful to junior cycle students:

Strand 1: Myself, my family and my friends. Students communicate about themselves in personal settings.
Strand 2:  Out and about in public places. Students acquire language to participate in different public situations
Strand 3: Education and school. Students communicate with teachers and peers in school/out-of-school settings 
Strand 4: Chinese and young global citizens. Students learn and talk about Chinese people, both in China and around the world, and their connections with other cultures and peoples.

In the four separate yet interconnected strands, students develop communication skills, intercultural and language awareness, and competence in digital literacy.

While the four strands suggest a particular order for learning, this can be modified by teachers or students depending on need. All students are required to achieve the same learning outcomes but will do so to different degrees of competence. 

The short course adopts an activity and task-based approach to language learning. Activities and tasks encourage students, with the guidance of their teachers, to identify and call on the target language they need to achieve a ‘real-world’ outcome.  The target language needed includes language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), grammatical forms, vocabulary and pronunciation (including tones). Samples of each of these are set out in the sample exponents. The sample exponents set out examples of specific learning which should flow from engagement with the learning outcomes of the course (Appendix 2).

The Classroom-Based Assessment reflects the learning students undertake in this NCCA short course. Schools have the flexibility to adapt any NCCA short course to suit their particular needs and school context. If adapting the course, schools may also need to adapt the Classroom-Based Assessment, so that it reflects the learning their students undertook. Schools may also develop their own short course(s) and related classroom-based assessment. Guidelines for schools who wish to develop their own short course(s) are available.

The learning outcomes of this course are broadly aligned with the level indicators for Level 3 of the National Framework of Qualifications (Appendix 1).
The Chinese Language and Culture short course has been designed for approximately 100 hours of student engagement.

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