Games can be a really fun and engaging way to teach Mandarin, especially at Primary level.

So much so, there was a workshop specifically around this at our 2019 Annual Teaching Conference. The session was led by Rhoda Pennington from Highgate Primary where she is both a Year 2 class teacher and also Mandarin teacher for the whole school.

Rhoda’s PPT from the workshop can be found here:

Rhoda also has a blog. Click HERE to read it.

During the workshop, a lot was said about a book called ESL Games: 176 English Language Games for Children by Shelley Ann Vernon. It focuses on games for children who are learning English, however, the ideas can be easily adapted and tailored to help children learn Mandarin: the principles and rules are the same, just the language is different.

Similarly, the British Council published the below guide for teaching English to young learners. Many of the activities can easily be adapted to suit the primary level teaching of Mandarin:

Rachel Tiefenbrun has also presented a similar topic at a previous Annual Conference. Click below to see her PPT: