Students at Calday Grange Grammar School in the UK have helped twinning schools overcome the language barrier.
Archbishop Sentamu Academy in Hull is twinned with Beijing Dacheng School in China, both took part in BBC World Class’s “Cruncharama” project last month.
The schools discussed the credit crunch and what they would like to see the G20 leaders achieve at the London summit. Beijing Dacheng School took part in Mandarin but their answers were translated into English so that their partners could read them.
The BBC Chinese service wrote a story for their website about the twinning project and the effects of the credit crunch in Beijing and Hull. Archbishop Sentamu Academy students were keen to read the story and look at their answers from a Chinese perspective but couldn’t as the story was written in Mandarin.
Links with China
Help was at hand from BBC World Class who put them in touch with Calday Grange Grammar school. Students at Calday Grange are studying Mandarin and translated the story into English with the help of their languages teacher Lisa Wang.
Calday Grange students started learning Mandarin ten years ago. There was huge enthusiasm from the students, who were very keen to learn about China. They now have over 200 pupils studying Mandarin and have set up a link with Hangzhou Foreign Languages School in South East China.
How did they do that?
Bishop Sentamu Academy and Beijing Dacheng School both took part in the BBC World Class Cruncharama project.
You can read more answers from Beijing Dacheng School here.
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