Students enjoying jiaozi, a traditional Chinese dumpling, at Kingford Community School in London. Provided to China Daily

Despite being in a poor area of London, it has won accolades for being first to offer Chinese lessons to all students

As any teacher will tell you, there are few tougher challenges in life than keeping your students awake first thing on a Monday morning.

But at 9 am at the Kingsford Community School in east London, Liu Linying has her year-11 students (aged 15 and 16) enthusiastically shouting out a list of sports in Chinese.

Initially they follow her lead, repeating after her: "Football, zu qiu; tennis, wang qiu." Yet it doesn't take long for them to anticipate the answers, and before long Liu only has to point to the English word for the whole class to shout the Chinese translation in unison.

Despite being located in one of London's poorest areas, Kingsford has emerged as the UK's leading center of school-age Chinese learning. It was the first school in the country to offer all students the opportunity to learn Chinese, and one of the few to compete with wealthier, private schools when it comes to Chinese teaching.

"I started teaching at the school in 2000," says Liu, who is head of Chinese at Kingsford. "At the time there was very little Mandarin teaching at schools and I had to provide all the teaching materials myself."

But in 2007 things improved when Kingsford was selected to become one of the first Confucius classrooms in the world, part of a Confucius Institute initiative to encourage Mandarin teaching in schools.

"We were already quite established when we were invited to become a Confucius classroom, but the Confucius Institute have helped by providing a lot of resources," Liu says.

"The children are really enthusiastic about learning Chinese, and I already have two of my students who have gone on to study it at university."

The students' passion for learning Chinese is clear. One of the year-11 students, Shajedah Kayum, says that her group of friends often throw a Chinese phrase into their conversations.

"We've started to introduce Chinese into our everyday conversations. We might greet each other or ask how someone is in Chinese just to practice," Kayum says.

For head teacher Joan Deslandes, Chinese is a way to offer her students an opportunity that might otherwise have been closed for them.

"The fact that a significant proportion of Kingsford's students are of a working class background, facing socio-economic deprivation, means that it is imperative that the school strives to open new avenues of possibility for them," Deslandes says.

Kingsford's diversity - more than 50 different languages are spoken by students at the school, many of whom are already bilingual - was in part Deslandes' inspiration for pushing Mandarin learning. But language learning itself is only part of the lesson she hopes students will take away with them.

"The promotion of Chinese culture has had a hugely positive influence on the ethos and outcomes for pupils at Kingsford. We are now the highest performing mixed school in the local authority, despite being a school which is in its early years of existence."

In fact, learning about China is as important a part of the students' education as learning the language. The children are treated to everything from calligraphy lessons, to Chinese dance performances and jiaozi (a type of Chinese dumpling) cooking workshops.

"Aspects of Chinese culture have become very popular," says Deslandes, who notes that engaging students with practical uses of Chinese provides great motivation to work harder in class.

"We definitely aren't just about the language. For example, if our pupils are doing well we might take them on a reward trip to Chinatown, where we'll go to a restaurant and the students can practice by ordering in Chinese."

Such activities keep the students happy, but also help the school fulfill its commitment to promoting Chinese within the wider community. While Kingsford Community School is open to students between the ages of 11-16, outreach programs provide nearby primary schools with an introduction to Chinese learning.

The school has also provided some 17- and 18-year-old students the chance to continue their study of Chinese after graduating. Pupils are beginning to realize that learning Mandarin could be just as important to their future careers as math, English or science.

"I enjoy learning Mandarin as it makes a really good impression," says year-8 student Veselin Ivanov. "There are 1.3 billion people speaking Chinese around the world, so if I can learn the language it means I can talk to 1.3 billion more people."

Head teacher Deslandes notes that parents are starting to send their children to Kingsford on the basis of its reputation as a leader in Chinese language teaching.

"Parents and pupils are beginning to realize that the job market is not national, it is international, and they must work hard to compete. Every advantage counts and speaking Chinese is a big advantage," Deslandes says.

The positive reaction from parents combined with support from the Confucius Institute has allowed the school to expand its Chinese operation in recent years. Alongside her regular lessons, Liu has helped train over 100 Chinese teachers across the UK.

She also offers a Mandarin lesson on Friday afternoon for other staff at Kingsford keen to pick up a bit of the language.

As part of this wider promotion of Chinese culture, the school has entered into a partnership with Peking University Middle School, and runs annual trips to China for its students, including the opportunity for pupils to take part in work experience.

Several of the Chinese teachers now working at Kingsford have previously taught at Peking University Middle School. The link-up allows the schools to build a strong relationship between both staff and pupils.

One of the teachers who has worked at both schools, Liu Xiuqin, notes that teaching British pupils is a very different prospect to teaching Chinese pupils.

"In China the teacher tends to speak at the class a lot and the students follow your lead," Liu says. "Here the students are far more active in class, so you have to keep them engaged."

And it seems to be working. In 2009, two-thirds of Kingsford students received the top A or A* grade in Mandarin GCSE, a staggering achievement for a school without the financial support of the private sector.

The school has also received plaudits from senior politicians in both the UK and China. Last year a Kingsford delegation was invited to meet Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. The school is also a multiple winner of the UK National Mandarin Speaking Competition.

The recognition is a fitting reward for the unbridled enthusiasm for Chinese learning that Kingsford has instilled in its pupils, and as Liu's 9 am lesson comes to a close, even the promise of more homework can't take that away.

For China Daily

(China Daily 12/14/2012 page15)