Benchmarking Learning and Teaching of Chinese as a Foreign Language: a GCSE Perspective

Component awareness has been proved remarkably effective in Chinese character recognition and instruction (Zhang 1990, Xing 2005, among others). The present study investigates 724 essential Chinese characters extracted from the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA)’s General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) (i.e. Year 11) Mandarin (simplified version) (2019) Specification Guide.
The study aims to examine the equivalence of GCSE Mandarin to the New HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi). Comparing to HSK, it is found that among the 724 characters, 168 and 148 corresponds to the New HSK Level 1 (coverage as 97.1%) and New HSK Level 2 (coverage as 84.6%) characters, while another 173 and 142 belong to New HSK Level 3 (coverage as 63.8%) and New HSK Level 4 (coverage as 32.1%) characters, respectively. The scant incorporation of New HSK Level characters may limit or hinder students’ communicative skills as defined by New HSK Level 3 standards as ‘basic communication skills’ in living, studying and working in Mandarin speaking regions.
Furthermore, differences in building capacity of component are found. Among the 724 Chinese characters, 331 components were identified, with 14 super ‘builders’ namely口、一、日、十、木、土、月、又、宀、氵、大、丿、八 and亻, capable of forming a range from 21 to 146 Chinese characters each. These components generally correspond to Xing (2005)’s eight ‘super builders’ with two exceptions扌and 艹.

Suggestions can therefore be made on incorporating more New HSK Level 3 words into GCSE’s vocabulary list, action verbs in particular, to improve potential GCSE students’ capacity in Chinese character recognition so as to enhance their communicative proficiency.