Comparing Chinese Enrichment (Primary/Preschool)

[tamarind]

maisy:

First of all, thanks tamarind for sharing of your blog. I can see that you definitely play a very instrumental role in shaping your kids' development - kudos to you - your kids are lucky to have u I wish I can have half your drive. However, it is true that most , if not all Berries are franchise outlets .. hence different outlets' standard can vary and even terms of enrolment vary slightly as some centres are \"more flexible\" while some are not, altho they largely use the same materials.
But thanks for your recommendation - i will make an appointment w Berries Kembangan and do a trial - Really thanks for sharing.

You are welcome
So far my kids have attended Berries at Bukit Batok, Woodlands, and West Coast, the standards are exactly the same. My friends and SIL have kids in Tanglin and Orchard, and they are also very happy with the standard. I am not sure about other centers. I spoke to the center head at West Coast, she told me that they have to follow directions from the head office.

Do take note that parents have to play a very important part, even if they send kids to enrichment classes. In Berries, parents are advised to spend time to revise with kids everyday, otherwise there may not be any improvement.

Anyway, my girl has stopped her Berries class now that she is in P1. I make sure that she reads many Chinese story books(without hanyu pinyi) consistently, and I feel that she is doing very well learning at home So enrichment classes are not always necessary.

[MMM]

maisy:

U mean at K1 level, they have \"singing rhymes\" ? Sadly, they do not have that at N2 level... I would have thought they should introduce singing rhymes for N2 to \"liven up the class\" since these are the tiny tots...and singing of rhymes might be a good way to engage them... but nope they didn't hv it .. like i said previously, maybe their strategy works for the older school-going kids... perhaps not so for the tiny tots

Actually they have that for N2. We had a class performance last year and the kids were singing various rhymes with actions and all. We were happy because we saw that our girl can remember all that is being taught. Could it be the day you happen to be there, they didn't do it???

[anneffendi]

Hi mummies,

Am keen to enrol my son who is now coming to 5 but we do not have basic mandarin/chinese skills. I only remembere "ren" "kao" "men" hehehe and that was when I was in kindergarten .
I do have some basic understanding in Mandarin and able to communicate simple conversations which I had learnt fm my chinese friends .Hence, I want my son to be well-versed and understanding and communication in Chinese/Mandarin.

Can mummies share with me the following?
it is too exhaustive to read the whole thread
Question is, can I also enrol in Berries ,which I read thru, quite a fun style of learning or Tien Hsia which is very academic ?
What are the fees and environment like for both?
What are the timings like?
Are they always be communicating in Chinese/Mandarin?
I do not mind enrolling my son in "N1" level //First step.
Pls share ,thanks in advance.
Rgds
Mummy Nora

[titank]

tamarind:

You are welcome

So far my kids have attended Berries at Bukit Batok, Woodlands, and West Coast, the standards are exactly the same. My friends and SIL have kids in Tanglin and Orchard, and they are also very happy with the standard. I am not sure about other centers. I spoke to the center head at West Coast, she told me that they have to follow directions from the head office.

Do take note that parents have to play a very important part, even if they send kids to enrichment classes. In Berries, parents are advised to spend time to revise with kids everyday, otherwise there may not be any improvement.

Anyway, my girl has stopped her Berries class now that she is in P1. I make sure that she reads many Chinese story books(without hanyu pinyi) consistently, and I feel that she is doing very well learning at home So enrichment classes are not always necessary.

Hi Tamarind,

How about Mountbatten Berries? Any of your friends' kid try at there?

[Busymom]

MMM:

maisy:

U mean at K1 level, they have \"singing rhymes\" ? Sadly, they do not have that at N2 level... I would have thought they should introduce singing rhymes for N2 to \"liven up the class\" since these are the tiny tots...and singing of rhymes might be a good way to engage them... but nope they didn't hv it .. like i said previously, maybe their strategy works for the older school-going kids... perhaps not so for the tiny tots

Actually they have that for N2. We had a class performance last year and the kids were singing various rhymes with actions and all. We were happy because we saw that our girl can remember all that is being taught. Could it be the day you happen to be there, they didn't do it???

Tien Hsia does that every week too, the rhymes, that is, though not always in a singing form. So far for DS' first 3 lessons in Berries, I haven't seen any rhymes.

Does Molin teach 成语 in the K1/K2 class?

[tamarind]

[quote]
Hi Tamarind,

How about Mountbatten Berries? Any of your friends' kid try at there?[/quote]I haven't heard anything about Mountbatten Berries before.

Busymom:

Tien Hsia does that every week too, the rhymes, that is, though not always in a singing form. So far for DS' first 3 lessons in Berries, I haven't seen any rhymes.

Berries teachers use games to teach the new words. Both my kids remember the words very well after each class, and they enjoy the games. We also let our kids read the Berries lesson of the week every day at home. This reinforcement is very important so that the child can retain the words in her long term memory.

[tamarind]

anneffendi:

Hi mummies,

Am keen to enrol my son who is now coming to 5 but we do not have basic mandarin/chinese skills. I only remembere \"ren\" \"kao\" \"men\" hehehe and that was when I was in kindergarten .
I do have some basic understanding in Mandarin and able to communicate simple conversations which I had learnt fm my chinese friends .Hence, I want my son to be well-versed and understanding and communication in Chinese/Mandarin.

Can mummies share with me the following?
it is too exhaustive to read the whole thread
Question is, can I also enrol in Berries ,which I read thru, quite a fun style of learning or Tien Hsia which is very academic ?
What are the fees and environment like for both?
What are the timings like?
Are they always be communicating in Chinese/Mandarin?
I do not mind enrolling my son in \"N1\" level //First step.
Pls share ,thanks in advance.
Rgds
Mummy Nora

Both my kids associate Chinese with fun, because they play games every time they attend Berries. At their age, the most important task is to develop a love for the language. Berries emphasize recognition of Chinese characters from N2 to K2, there is not much writing and very little homework. I think that this is the correct method of teaching Chinese. Between the age of 3 to 6, all kids have an amazing ability to learn new words, and we should aim to teach them to recognize as many Chinese words as possible. In China, parents aim to teach their kids to be able to read independently by the age of 6, writing comes later.

The fees for Berries is about $380 for one term of 12 weeks. There are various timings every day of the week, you need to check with the centers. I would advise you to go for the weekday afternoon or morning classes, and look for a class with as few kids as possible.

Teachers only use Mandarin to teach, with the help of pictures and real objects.

You should start no later than N2. By K1 the standard at Berries is already very high. I have seen quite a few 5 year old kids who need to join N2 classes because they cannot follow up with the K1 lessons. I have even seen a P1 girl joining a K2 class.

I have looked through the Tien Hsia materials before, personally I feel that Berries materials are better and they have a higher standard compared to Tien Hsia. Berries teach kids to read in sentences from N2, and kids are able to read short stories by the time they reach K1. This is very important because the only way to be good in Chinese is by reading as many story books as possible.

[MMM]

Busymom:

Tien Hsia does that every week too, the rhymes, that is, though not always in a singing form. So far for DS' first 3 lessons in Berries, I haven't seen any rhymes.

Does Molin teach 成语 in the K1/K2 class?

No, they don't teach Chengyu in K1/K2.

I was talking to the Molin teacher yesterday who is currently teaching my K1 (she taught her during nursery and concidentally she is teaching my other older kids as well). She related to me that in the initial periods, they will usually expose the kids to the words. The songs and rhymes will come in afterwards but it's definite that they have those rhymes and songs as I've seen my girl doing it during performance. She used to teach in TH as well and yes she noted that different schools adapt different styles and also the level of coverage each school aim to have is different.

She mentioned that in the case of primary level, Molin's standard is definitely very high so there are instances of non SAP students who find it \"difficult to cope\"since what they are learning in school is \"simpler\". But if we look at it from a enrichment perspective and if the child is prepared, the child should actually excel in his CL in school with that exposure.

[titank]

Based on the discussions, maybe some language school could be specilaise at certain level. This are just my assumption, it maybe wrong. Do feel free to discuss.


Preschool (Age 3 -6)
Berries
Tsien Hsia
Eduplus
Yuquan

Lower Primary (P1-P3)
Molin
Yuquan
Xueni Lang
Tsien Hsia
Han L

Upper Primary (P4-P6)
Jiang Education
Molin

[Busymom]

MMM:

Busymom:

Tien Hsia does that every week too, the rhymes, that is, though not always in a singing form. So far for DS' first 3 lessons in Berries, I haven't seen any rhymes.

Does Molin teach 成语 in the K1/K2 class?

No, they don't teach Chengyu in K1/K2.

I was talking to the Molin teacher yesterday who is currently teaching my K1 (she taught her during nursery and concidentally she is teaching my other older kids as well). She related to me that in the initial periods, they will usually expose the kids to the words. The songs and rhymes will come in afterwards but it's definite that they have those rhymes and songs as I've seen my girl doing it during performance. She used to teach in TH as well and yes she noted that different schools adapt different styles and also the level of coverage each school aim to have is different.

She mentioned that in the case of primary level, Molin's standard is definitely very high so there are instances of non SAP students who find it \"difficult to cope\"since what they are learning in school is \"simpler\". But if we look at it from a enrichment perspective and if the child is prepared, the child should actually excel in his CL in school with that exposure.

Hi MMM

I will send you a PM. Sounds that Molin style is rather similar to Tien Hsia where the rhymes, performance and focus on word recognition is concerned. Every week in Tien Hsia, there is a new rhyme (even at N1), so the kids learn to read new words and sentences and there is a performance at the end of each term. Like what Tamarind said, it is important for children this age to learn more words so that they can be independent and start to read Chinese story books on their own when they are in K1/K2. If there are too many words that the child does not understand, he would just lose interest or give up reading the book.

With regard to 成语, when does Molin start teaching? My K2 at Tien Hsia hasn't started as well and my guess is it would only be covered at primary level. Do you feel this is important - am tapping on your experience here since two of your kids are already in primary school.

What about spelling, when does Molin start? DD has zero spelling list from her childcare currently (but I am not complaining ), so I don't mind it when she had spelling about twice a term in her 3rd and 4th term during the K1 Tien Hsia class to instill some discipline (just 2 words anyway). I think some kindergartens in Singapore probably give out more spelling than that. :roll: