This Academic Year at the British International School, Phuket sees the start of an exciting new initiative.
In both the primary and secondary schools, we have seen the introduction of Mandarin as a First Language class aimed at speakers of Mandarin whose language is of native speaker standard.
The initiative forms part of a collaborative project between the governments of Thailand and Taiwan.
There are now three native speaker Mandarin teachers at BISP who between them teach all first language and foreign language Mandarin classes from Year 1 to Year 13.
In the primary school students who speak a high standard of Mandarin are given 4 hours of instruction per week in Mandarin Literacy. There are about 20 students currently taking this option in Years 1 to 6.
In the secondary school there are First Language Mandarin classes in Year 7 and Year 10, where the students have just embarked on the 2-year Cambridge IGCSE First Language Mandarin course.
Alongside these courses there are also Foreign Language Mandarin classes at IB level in Years 12 and 13. The past academic year 2016-2017 saw some of the best results recorded in Modern Languages since the school was opened.
The average Grade for the Mandarin IB course was 6.33, which compares very favourably with a world average of 5.97.
At IGCSE level the results were even more incredible, with almost 78% of the Mandarin students obtaining a Grade A* with an average score of 87%.
Besides Mandarin, BISP also offers Russian First Language courses at IGCSE and IB level as well as self-taught Language A classes in Years 12 and 13.
At KS3 and IGCSE level we offer Mandarin, French and Spanish Foreign Language classes and at IB Level we have classes of French, Spanish and Mandarin at Language B and two IB Ab initio courses; one in French and the other in Spanish.
The Modern Languages Faculty at BISP is looking forward to an exciting year and aiming for even higher results for its students.
For more information on Mandarin and other languages taught at BISP, please contact Chris Greene, Head of Modern Languages: (cgreene@bisphuket.ac.th)