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Before enrolling in IB, choosing Chinese A or Chinese B is something that many parents and students need to think about. In order to have a clear answer to this question, one must first understand the different contents of each choice.

What are the IB elective requirements?

The IB curriculum consists of six areas: studies in language and literature; language acquisition; individuals and societies; mathematics; sciences; and art discipline. Students in the pre-university program should take one subject from each of the six academic fields, but they can also choose two subjects from another academic field instead of electing art subjects. In general, three (maximum four) higher-level courses should be taken, and the rest should be taken as standard-level courses.

The Chinese A course belongs to the field of studies in language and literature while the Chinese B course belongs to language acquisition.

So if you choose Chinese A, you need to take another subject in the field of language acquisition. This could be English B, French B or other languages.

However, the premise of this selection method is that the students' two languages are at different levels. For many Hong Kong students, their English is much better than Chinese, so they often try to choose English A and Chinese B. But if their Chinese and English proficiency are about the same, then they can choose Chinese A or English A.

However, should students take this route?

The advantage of choosing Chinese A and English A is that students can learn two languages in depth at the same time, and gain a deeper cultural understanding in the process of learning literature.

But the disadvantage is that the study will be more intense and the pressure will be greater. So students need to properly weigh the pros and cons - after all, there are courses in the other four areas.

What is the difference between the learning content of Chinese A and Chinese B?

To make a suitable choice between Chinese A and Chinese B, the second thing you have to understand is the difference in their content.

Chinese A includes both language and literature courses as well as literature courses - both of which require students to read extensively and have relatively high writing skills.

The Chinese A language and literature course focuses on practicality. Students will study non-literary texts such as reviews, advertisements, news, visual texts and expository texts. They will also be required to study at least four to six literary works.

The literature courses are all based solely on the study of literary works. Students will study works of different genres, including poetry, prose, novels and dramas. They need to master various literary terms and be able to apply them in the actual exams.

Generally speaking, for students who choose Chinese A, their mother tongue is usually Chinese or Chinese is their best language.

The difficulty of the Chinese B course is much less than that of Chinese A. This course mainly cultivates students' Chinese listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, focusing on language communication. Students will study a variety of practical writing styles such as letters, blogs, speeches, e-mails and more. Usually, those who choose Chinese B are beginners in Chinese or have studied Chinese for two to five years.

Several factors should be taken into account when selecting Chinese courses. Initially, students must consider the prerequisites of their preferred university and intended major.

For instance, a law program may require or prefer students to have studied English at an advanced level. If a student is keen on pursuing Chinese at a similar level, he or she could enroll in both English and Chinese A concurrently.

While this may be a viable strategy for aspiring law students, it doesn't apply to a majority of science-related programs.

In addition, students also need to confirm with their middle school to see if there are other requirements for Chinese subject selection. Sometimes the school may not allow you to choose Chinese B if your native language is Chinese.

Moreover, some schools have already allocated language classes and language and literature classes at the Middle Years Program stage, so when it comes to the DP stage, students in the language class will choose Chinese B, while students in the language and literature class will choose Chinese A.

Finally, you have to consider the university course you want to study in the future.

If you want to study science and engineering in an English-speaking area in the future, why not choose a combination of English A and Chinese B if the school allows it?

That is to say, it can meet the English language requirements for further studies, and can also reduce the study pressure of the DP stage, and devote more time and experience to science courses and practice.

If you want to study Chinese-related majors in university, such as Chinese literature or Chinese history, you should naturally choose Chinese A.