Chinese teacher is expanding pupils' horizons
Year-long exchange will benefit children across the area
Published: 19 December 2023
A new Chinese exchange teacher is helping pupils in schools across East Renfrewshire to expand their learning.
Schools already provide French lessons from primary 1, and then an additional language is introduced to all pupils from primary 5 onwards.
Those schools which have chosen to include Mandarin Chinese as their additional language, are benefitting from lessons being provided by Jiaqian Wu.
Ms Wu will be with East Renfrewshire for the next year as a result of a partnership between the Confucius Institute for Scotland's Schools, based at Strathclyde University, and two Chinese universities.
East Renfrewshire has hosted a number of Chinese exchange teachers since 2012, who have mainly worked with primary 5-7 pupils across the 14 primary schools where Mandarin Chinese is taught. Many primary pupils have also enjoyed virtual lessons with teachers in China as part of the exchange programme.
Jiaqian Wu, who is a Masters student, said: 'This is a great opportunity for me to learn more about different teaching practices. I want to ensure that my lessons are interesting and fun. As well as teaching basic Mandarin, it's also important that children have the chance to learn about the culture of China as well. I've enjoyed getting into the classroom and you can see that all the pupils are very interested in learning the language.'
As well as teaching the language, Ms Wu is also introducing the children to other parts of Chinese culture - including already showing them how to use chopsticks properly.
Other languages taught across East Renfrewshire include Spanish and Urdu, with the exposure to these different cultures helping to expand pupils' horizons.
Ms Wu added: 'Since moving to Scotland everyone has been so helpful to me and I've already had the chance to visit places like Edinburgh and Aberdeen. It's a beautiful country and look forward to seeing more over the coming months. When I return to China I want to teach and this experience will be very beneficial. I just love being able to give children new information and see them grow.'
