Just me kind of confused and irritated (1 Viewer)

[...xD]

So I was born in Sydney, and am fluent in mandarin because I speak chinese at home with my parents. I'm in Year 10 and only started proper chinese classes at school this year meaning that I will be illegible for Chinese Continuers/ Extension course, which forces me to do the Chinese in Context course.

I have friends that literally arrived in Australia 2 months before they turned 10, meaning that they will also be doing in Context???

Like wow how is that even fair?

At this point would it even be wise for me to pick it next term? I can speak well, write literally nothing, and read fine.


Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated,
Thanks

 

[Masaken]

So I was born in Sydney, and am fluent in mandarin because I speak chinese at home with my parents. I'm in Year 10 and only started proper chinese classes at school this year meaning that I will be illegible for Chinese Continuers/ Extension course, which forces me to do the Chinese in Context course.

I have friends that literally arrived in Australia 2 months before they turned 10, meaning that they will also be doing in Context???

Like wow how is that even fair?

At this point would it even be wise for me to pick it next term? I can speak well, write literally nothing, and read fine.


Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated,
Thanks

I could be wrong but if I recall correctly, the In Context courses -- here Chinese -- are designed for students who've spent at least almost all of their lives in Australia, but at home they grow up speaking Chinese and the culture despite attending English-language schools in Australia, thus it takes into account the fact that their skills in spoken Chinese are much better than written Chinese. I'd assume that because of this written Chinese is also the focus for teachers to teach to the students, and it seems like this is the case especially when I look through the past HSC papers a good number of the questions include responding to texts (given to you via either reading or listening) by writing something in response, and that writing in Chinese is the main focus here, so your choice would depend on whether you're able to deal with that, especially since you can 'write literally nothing'

Not sure about eligibility and how it applies to you or your friends here but I think the Chinese in Context syllabus may or may not answer your questions.

 

[...xD]

I could be wrong but if I recall correctly, the In Context courses -- here Chinese -- are designed for students who've spent at least almost all of their lives in Australia, but at home they grow up speaking Chinese and the culture despite attending English-language schools in Australia, thus it takes into account the fact that their skills in spoken Chinese are much better than written Chinese. I'd assume that because of this written Chinese is also the focus for teachers to teach to the students, and it seems like this is the case especially when I look through the past HSC papers a good number of the questions include responding to texts (given to you via either reading or listening) by writing something in response, and that writing in Chinese is the main focus here, so your choice would depend on whether you're able to deal with that, especially since you can 'write literally nothing'

Not sure about eligibility and how it applies to you or your friends here but I think the Chinese in Context syllabus may or may not answer your questions.

Oh... so...written response is the main focus... Okay lol I'm definitely heading out now

Thank you for the advice!

 

[airora]

So I was born in Sydney, and am fluent in mandarin because I speak chinese at home with my parents. I'm in Year 10 and only started proper chinese classes at school this year meaning that I will be illegible for Chinese Continuers/ Extension course, which forces me to do the Chinese in Context course.

I have friends that literally arrived in Australia 2 months before they turned 10, meaning that they will also be doing in Context???

Like wow how is that even fair?

At this point would it even be wise for me to pick it next term? I can speak well, write literally nothing, and read fine.


Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated,
Thanks

It isn't fair . Students who have learnt Chinese in China, even if only up to age 10, will still arguably have a significant advantage over students who grew up in Australia speaking the language at home. And because of this, most of the candidature is really competent with 62% attaining a band 6 last year (with the median HSC mark being 92). Since the ATAR is a measure of rank, this effectively means that scoring below 92 will scale you down quite a bit; scoring a 90 HSC mark will only translate to a ~75 ATAR contribution. In comparison, to receive a 75 ATAR contribution for English Advanced you would need to score a ~79 for your HSC mark.

This problem is alluded to in this article <https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...g-to-protect-their-atars-20210528-p57w7f.html> and this parliamentary submission <https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=865543c3-0cb4-4b03-98c4-2a267ea9bfda&subId=690233>. NESA's "In Context" criteria is not based on your true language ability, but instead simply whether you are a background speaker - a really vague and varied umbrella term which neglects a lot of factors that go into someone's language proficiency. NESA should do better

And yeah, the course predominantly focuses on writing (though there is a speaking/interview component). If you're not confident in writing in Chinese, I honestly would not recommend taking it. I dropped the subject this year (in Year 12) after realising that no matter how much study I did for it, there would still be a really high chance that it wouldn't even count towards my ATAR in the end, so yeah don't do what I did

 

[...xD]

Ah all my teacher was willing to tell me was that I could take the course and not how great I would go in it. NESA really needs to rework this aspect of the course lol