Submitted by cob on
Recently, the various mandarin courses offered by the Confucius Institute at the University of the Bahamas started off successfully in the university and in two high schools.
In the University of the Bahamas, the Confucius Institute offered two-levels of credit mandarin courses: “Elementary Chinese 1” (course code: CHIN 103) is intended for students with zero basis in Chinese. Adopting the “HSK 1” standard textbook, the course aims at helping students passing HSK 1 test; “Elementary Chinese 2” (course code: CHIN 104) is intended for students who has completed “Elementary Chinese 1” course. Adopting the “HSK 2” standard textbook, the course aims at helping students passing HSK 2 test. Currently, there are 21 registered students in “Elementary Chinese 1”, and among the 20 registered students in “Elementary Chinese 2”, 13 sat the HSK 1 tests held in Dec, 2017. Their scores are all above 140 (the full score is 200). One achieved the full score of 200, and 8 achieved scores higher than 180. For quiet a few years, the credit mandarin courses offered by the Confucius Institute at the University are among the four foreign languages for the students to choose for study (the other three are French, Spanish and Creole).
In this semester, the Confucius Institute also offered mandarin courses in two high schools in the Bahamas--Doris Johnson and St. Andrews. Doris Johnson is senior high school with foreign languages as its feature. It is mandatory for all their students to learn two foreign languages. Since this semester, the Confucius Institute will start delivering mandarin course for 15 nine-grade students there, which will last for three years until their graduation. St. Andrews is a famous international high school in the Bahamas. In this semester, the Confucius Institute will offer mandarin courses for the junior high students in the school with the total number of students being 113 in 6 class.
In addition, the Confucius Institute will offer two evening mandarin courses for the Bahamian community which will start in early February. The Confucius Institute also plans to offer ex-curriculum mandarin classes which is accessible to all Bahamian senior high school students. According to the future plan of the CI at UB, it will develop “Mandarin Minor” series course in the university and custom-made courses for the government and corporate organizations in the country.