Comparing Chinese Enrichment (Primary/Preschool)

[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:

[Busymom]

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

I would also add Busy Bee to the primary level. Seems very popular from what I have heard from friends, especially composition.

[MMM]

Busymom:

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:

At P2, I don't think they have started teaching chengyu in a structured manner. But I do observed that due to the strong chinese foundation that was build, my P3 girl has an interest to find out about more chengyu by herself. I also bought a book about chengyu (with some illustration) from popular so she find that pretty interesting.

For spelling I think they start at P1. I recall that in K1 and K2, it was still not so much the lots of written work type. It was more word recognition and rhymes. It changed when they go to P1 where it became very worksheet and syllabus focus. For tingxie, I think kinderland also started at K2 as well. To me, I don't think my K1 (nov baby) can do tingxie at this point. I would be happy if she can recognise the words. I feel that her writing skills is not there yet.

In our case, I standby Molin because my P3 only started chinese enrichment class (molin) at K2 at the recommendation of my cousin who taught her K1 chinese. It's considered late. But the teacher made it interesting that it made her like the language. She would revise her molin work after class and as a result of that, we observed that she picked up on word recognition significantly. Also, they had various class performance and we observed that most of her peers know their characters really well. So that might have prompted her to work harder. She was P1 ready and currently, though she struggle with compo and compre (different issue), but her written and word recognition is strong and I rarely coach her on the subject. I would say that along the way, she does have a fair share of teacher changes but maybe she is the quiet and obedient type, it doesn't really affect her.

I am not advocating that Molin is perfect because I do have another child P2 this year. He started in K1 and completely opposite type. Despite the lessons, he don't seem to pick up as much. Slow in writing and character recognition. It didn't help that we didn't spend time reviewing what he studied with him. But during P1, he had a change of teacher in Molin and we started to see improvement in his chinese learning. I think his chinese understanding is more of the above average type though he does have issues like writing slowly,etc....

[Busymom]

MMM:

I am not advocating that Molin is perfect because I do have another child P2 this year. He started in K1 and completely opposite type. Despite the lessons, he don't seem to pick up as much. Slow in writing and character recognition. It didn't help that we didn't spend time reviewing what he studied with him. But during P1, he had a change of teacher in Molin and we started to see improvement in his chinese learning. I think his chinese understanding is more of the above average type though he does have issues like writing slowly,etc....

I don't think anyone of us can advocate anywhere is perfect. :roll:

All depends on the teacher and the child.

[Starrenee]

Starrenee:

Hi everyone...i;m a newbie..would appreciate if anyone can provide any feedback on Forever Education compared to Berries. Planning to switch my gal from Berries to F.Education. Couldnt find much thread on this so any advise is very welcome..

Hi...think my conversation got lost somewhere..any mommies who can help me? thanks!

[anneffendi]

tamarind:

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.

Wow!
Thanks Tamarind for your valuable advice..
Think I gonna sit in in both centres to try..It also depends whether my son has a keen interest or not..
Every forum I see you