Lindfield Prep Why learn Mandarin? Have you ever struggled to communicate with locals while you were working or travelling in Europe? Learning Mandarin could help. At Lindfield, students have the opportunity to learn Mandarin both during school hours and after school, but some students and parents may wonder, why learn Mandarin? Isn’t it the most difficult language to learn? People all over the world learn to speak English, so why do we need to learn another language? Lindfield aims to develop internationally- minded students, and learning a language is part of that process. But beyond the obvious advantages of being able to communicate in another language, studying Mandarin helps our students develop their ability to think critically and their capacity to develop new concepts. Mrs Eva Angel, a Chinese language teacher at Lindfield, says learning Mandarin can help students to develop open-mindedness and caring, as well as an internationally minded outlook. "We encourage our boys to be risk- takers—not afraid of learning new things, taking challenges that present in their lives," she said. Scientific research supports the idea that there are benefits to learning a new language beyond the ability to communicate with people from other countries and culture. One such benefit is the way in which learning a new Toby Cameron-Tavendale, Ronan Brown and Freddie Bourne with their Chinese Zodiacs poster for the Sydney Art of Traditional Chinese Characters Festival language can improve brain as one example of symbols as part of development. “Brain plasticity”, in plain their wider learning. English, means that our brain has the “At Lindfield, teachers all work together,” ability to make new connections and said Mrs Angel. “They draw from boys’ modify its structure as we learn. prior knowledge. The Art teacher inspired Learning a language helps to activate the boys to create posters for various different parts of the brain. cultural occasions. At the library, there So, is Mandarin hard to learn? Yes and are many books in Chinese as well.” no. It all depends on what level of There is no doubt that the Chinese proficiency you want to achieve and your language is very different from languages attitude. It’s easy to learn daily based on the Roman alphabet. Some greetings and counting in Mandarin. The boys may find it daunting and feel ability to read, write and speak fluently anxious about the challenge, but by and to listen in depth takes time and embracing the opportunity to learn dedication. Mandarin, they are not only learning a At the start of that journey to fluency, new language; they are also learning to this year’s Kindergarten class did an be resilient, to have courage to deal with assembly item to showcase their unfamiliar situations, to build their Finn Wicks, Jake Ryan, Roshan Thangavelu, Mandarin learning. In Stage One, problem-solving skills and to not to give James Lemech, and Alex Pippia students have used Chinese characters up before having a go. 44| NEWS AUTUMN 2018| OPPORTUNITY