My son's English is very bad

[AmandaChuaAC]

would it not be better to focus on teaching him English and bringing him to the Library to borrow some English books to improve his reading skills first? Just my suggestion

[bb_ mom]

Based on my 2 kids, reading makes a major difference. DD had her grandmother read to her from a few months all. From there, we continued the reading habit. And therefore, she picked up reading much faster and loves reading.


When DS came along, my mum had to take care of DD plus 2 grandsons, including my DS. So no time to read to him. Ditto for us. End result - he doesn’t like to read at all and had a lot of problems reading. Now, we have reading time from 9pm. Both of us would do our reading together. Slowly but steadily, his dislike for reading is not as bad. And vocab better. Just need to work on spelling.

[Ms Chocolate]

Hi Mummy


I have sent my gal to phonic class at L Central.

I can see improvement in my girl's english as we are mandarin speaking family too.

You can Pm me for more details.

Regards. :imcool:

[magicpiglet]

Yes cultivating love for reading helps in improving English , read to him daily , let him choose books he like, u must talk to him to expose him to the language even if he reply in mandarin , try to start with simple words in daily life like names of objects. Watch english cartoon DVD n of cos there’s english enrichment centre. My girl is with lcentral too

[pirate]

Most young children are quick language learners. Also our education system is mainly English oriented.


We spoke to our dd only in Chinese when she was young. When she went to pre-nursery, she did not speak a single word of English. The teachers would speak to her in English and she used to reply in Mandarin. Now, compared to English, her Chinese sucks :sick: , and we still speak mainly Chinese at home.

You may want to consider doing some of the following:

(1) Instead of buying English cartoon DVDs, just subscribe to cable TV. Most of the cartoons children find interesting are in English. That will provide him with exposure to spoken English. Be sure to set the language settings to English.

(2) Send him to a school/childcare with a more English or at least bilingual environment. You may want to find a childcare that is more play at this age than academic. Children playing together can speak different languages and still, amazingly, manage to understand each other. I wouldn't worry about academic stuff until K1, if not later.

(3) Find him some non-Chinese friends in the neighbourhood to play with.

(4) As he gets older, buy him English books. This should be relatively easy, most of the books children find interesting are in English too!

(5) When choosing a primary school for him in the future, choose one that is traditionally strong in English. The environment in such a school is predominantly English, and English will soon become second nature to the child.

Before you know it, by the time he is in primary 2 or 3, you will be facing the same problem we face - how to improve his Chinese despite being a Chinese speaking family!