Ni Hao!
This afternoon, to add to their vast repertoire of experiences, the pupils of P5-7 welcomed Dr Meryl James from the SCILT, Scotland’s National Centre for Languages, and CISS, Confucius Institute for Scotland’s School. She gave the pupils a fascinating insight into China, its culture, a little of the geography and history of this huge country and an introduction to the language. The children looked at Chinese symbols and their representation and were able to put together numbers and months with surprising ease. It was quite amazing, and most impressive, to see how hungry young minds are for knowledge and how quickly the children took this new information on board (they were far quicker than their teacher if truth be told!)
Dr James is an entertaining and interesting expert in this area, having travelled to China 24 times in the last 25 years! She said she finds new and interesting things out about the country every time she goes. She was particularly keen that the pupils of today should be encouraged to go out into the big world and explore. She’s definitely left them with an interest in all things Chinese.
Dr James has left some further information for us to have a look at and also recommended the BBC Primary Languages website which has a section on Mandarin on it. Go and check it out!
She also made a particular point of saying to staff just how impressed she was by the polite, well-mannered and enthusiastic children we have – so well done to all the boys and girls!
