Kangaroo Class

The Kangaroo Class focuses on critical thinking and practical language application. Emphasizing cultural differences, we integrate daily listening, speaking, and reading practices. Students engage in sentence formulation, writing exercises, and activities like cultural discussions. Standard objectives cover basic writing and character recognition, while the advanced tier prepares students for complex language use. Guided by a registered VCE Chinese Language teacher, this class offers a pathway to VCE Chinese language. Designed for students with prior knowledge, it emphasizes vocabulary expansion, complex grammar, and improved conversational skills, including real-life applications, cultural immersion, and an advanced curriculum for fluency enhancement.

Kylie the Kangaroo

Guy(Jiaxi Xu) - Teacher

Jiaxi (Guy) Xu was born in Guangdong, China and is also a native speaker of Mandarin and Cantonese. He is currently a student at Monash University for his Masters in TESOL. For the past two years he has been teaching IELTS and TOEFL at various English language education institutions in China. In his experience, he has helped many children from international schools in China with their language and academic problems.

His philosophy of language teaching is to have fun while teaching. In his classes, he uses games and videos to help children understand and learn Chinese and improve their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills.

ACHIEVEMENT STANDARD

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Kangaroo Level

By the end of Kangaroo level, students use spoken and written Chinese in simple personal interactions with familiar participants about self, family, people, places, routine, school life, and their own interests and preferences, for example, 你叫什么名字？你上几年级？你有狗吗？你喜欢什么运动？ They use appropriate pronunciation, tone, gesture and movement and some formulaic expressions. They use modelled questions to develop responses, for example, 你的哥哥几岁？，他是谁？，你住在哪里？，这是什么？ They respond to and create simple informative and imaginative texts for familiar audiences (for example, 狼与小孩) by selecting learnt words and characters. Sentences are short and follow the basic subject–verb–object structure with occasional use of adjective predicates, for example, 这是红色的苹果.. Learners use familiar words in Pinyin, or presented in characters in texts. Numbers are used in relation to age and family members, and to quantify objects with measure words such as 一个男生，两个姐姐，三只狗.

Students explain why Chinese is a globally important language. They understand that Pinyin provides access to the sounds of the spoken language. They identify features of the Chinese writing system, including the range of strokes and their sequences in character writing, and explain how component knowledge can assist in learning characters. They are aware that each character is a meaningful unit that is used to make up words. They recognise familiar word order in Chinese sentences. They notice similarities and differences between the patterns of the Chinese language and those of English and other familiar languages. They recognise that languages change with time and due to influences, such as globalisation and technology. Students recognise that diversity of context and participants influence how meaning is communicated and apply this knowledge to their own communication. They notice how cultural differences may affect understanding between people.