Teaching Chinese at Home

[wyou]

hi RAchelmum,


Just checked out the website. Very interesting. Was thinking if itz possible to buy it from US coz hubby going to States soon.

How do u manage to teach ur DD so many things in Mandarin? How about English? Do u mention a word both in english n chinese at the same time? coz sometimes i will. Not sure if that will confuse her?

[wyou]

hi RAchelmum,


ya! good idea! should reward her sometimes...

[RAchelmum]

Hi Wyou

My DD is better in English, guess it is easier to pick up. She converses more in English & i am trying to encourage her to speak more Mandarin.

In SG context where almost everybody speaks Eng, don really need to worry that she cant handle, more on whether if it is gd Eng.

When teaching Chinese, i speak Mandarin only, unless i need to explain more.
Would occasionally ask her the names of the items in Chinese or English, so she can relate both lang. Eg. Butterfly calls??? 蝴蝶

Or based on the JG method: speaks Mandarin only on days when teaching Chinese & the same goes for English.

Food, fruits & veggie are some of the categories that are easier to teach. After a trip to the market, we would have a small session to recog the food before packing them in the fridge, with or without the word cards & even better with a little salad/ fruit party.

On the following trips to supermkt or mkt , she would point & start spouting out the names... :celebrate:

[wyou]

hi RAchelmum,


tks for the good advise. will try to do that. maybe i'm too 'kan cheong', afraid that she will not speak chinese. :lol:

[auntieM]

I do have a strange way of getting my boy to like Chinese and would like to share. Please bear with me if they sound silly to you.


From TV since young, news from Taiwan, same news from CCTV... Get the child to discuss and 'guess' what the presenter is talking about.
My boy finds it challenging.

MTV, pop ones, proper Chinese ones like Teresa Teng, new slang one like Stephanie Sun and Jay Chou.
He learns to differentiate diff 'types' and 'style',proper and slang. Do choose simplier and appropriate songs.

At 6
TVB period dramas. Just an short part of course.
My boy get to play with the remote.. He will listen in mandarin, read the
Eng subtitles,then Chinese subtitles. After that he will listen in Cantonese.

He is now able to read and write with ease, I guess mainly because he finds it interesting. ....so far that is.

[wyou]

hi auntieM,


yes... the method does sound strange to me. :shock:
i dun even have time to watch any tv programs or listen to music! But i think it is definately more interesting though. Will u be concern about the content of the TVB series or the song lyrics?

[RAchelmum]

Wyou

U r most welcome.

AuntieM
It's a good approach! Just that TV watching time need to be monitored.
I rem learning many new words from 新谣 & 90s chinese pop songs! :oops:

[auntieM]

Hi ya!


:lol:Warned you guys its weird!

News… Recent completion of Dubiai Tower.
Different country news have different facts. Time for elevator ride, height, time for completion… believe me, CCTV, CNA,TVBJ , TVBS all have different figures.
Period Drama. Gong Xin Ji. Although facts not totally right. Certain scenes like empress parading the garden, having tea… kids get to ‘learn’ how differently they did it then.
Songs. Theresa got a couple with chinese poetry. Jolin Tsai got a few song with ‘modern’ slang that young people use.

Guess important is to get kids interested, and apply them on everyday use…
Cheers

[Blobbi]

auntieM:

Hi ya!


:lol:Warned you guys its weird!

News... Recent completion of Dubiai Tower.
Different country news have different facts. Time for elevator ride, height, time for completion... believe me, CCTV, CNA,TVBJ , TVBS all have different figures.
Period Drama. Gong Xin Ji. Although facts not totally right. Certain scenes like empress parading the garden, having tea.... kids get to 'learn' how differently they did it then.
Songs. Theresa got a couple with chinese poetry. Jolin Tsai got a few song with 'modern' slang that young people use.

Guess important is to get kids interested, and apply them on everyday use....
Cheers

I din know this, even from the English news... Well done, auntyM!!

My son hates watching TV cos of the ads, darn. We have to stick to books in our case :(.

[phankao]

autumnbronze:

I just bought the odonata series oready from Popular Marine Parade (only this outlet seems to order from elmtree). Got discount wif m'bership card.

I just bought from Popular Bras Basah this afternoon. I think set 1 S$28 for 8 books. Oh well, my 17mo can read all of it. I should hv bought set 2. ;(