Mandarin in classrooms

Chinese puzzles, role plays and poems in Mandarin are set to enter Indian classrooms starting April.

Chinese puzzles, role plays and poems in Mandarin are set to enter Indian classrooms starting April.

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The Central Board of Secondary Education has unveiled details of its plan to introduce Mandarin as a language in class VI, two months after the plan was first publicly announced by HRD minister Kapil Sibal during a visit to China.

Mandarin will be the thirteenth foreign language to be offered in CBSE-affiliated schools. The batch of students entering class VI in 2011 will be the first to study the language through middle school.

In a letter to affiliated schools, the CBSE has suggested role playing, simulating real life situations, dramatising, miming, language games, puzzles, jokes and debates among strategies that schools can use to teach Mandarin effectively.