Cultural/Intercultural Understandings The understandings cover a selection of possible areas where students could reflect on Chinese culture and their own. It is not prescriptive but rather a guide for teachers to add or adapt.
To say that something is your favourite in Chinese, one simply says that it is the ‘most like(d)’ ‘我最喜… Wǒ zuì xǐ huan…’ because ‘最zuì’ means ‘the most’. Using this word with adjectives is much easier than in English, where adjectives comparatives and superlatives can take different patterns depending on the origins of the word and the number of syllables, e.g., ‘fast, faster, fastest’ but ‘good, better, best’ and ‘anxious, more anxious, most anxious’. ‘最Zuì’ makes it relatively easy.
Chinese students may spend a lot more time than Australian students do on homework tasks, as highlighted in the culture clip. Some students may have knowledge of schooling in different cultures which could make for an interesting discussion about cultural differences.
