Teaching Chinese at Home

[tamarind]

http://www.tnp.sg/news/story/0,4136,240973,00.html?


Mother Tongue Debate
She spends $1,000 on Chinese tuition for two sons
By Bryna Sim and Gan Ling Kai
May 19, 2010\t\t \t\t

Madam Karen Boh, a 39-year-old school administrator, has been spending $1,000 on Chinese tuition for her two boys every month, but it has yielded little result.

Madam Boh is not alone.

In Parliament yesterday, MP Josephine Teo (Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC) raised a concern shared by parents like Madam Boh.


Sharing her story with The New Paper, Madam Boh described how her elder boy Trystan Choong, 8, scored a dismal 15 per cent in his Primary 3 mid-year Chinese examination results.

Now, for $600, Trystan goes for Chinese tuition twice a week.

Madam Boh and her husband, Leon Choong, a 39-year-old education administrator, said Chinese is not their forte.

Worried that Trystan may have difficulties continuing his education here, Madam Boh applied for permanent residence in Australia for Trystan and herself.

They got it in 2005.

\"If need be, we will migrate there for the sake of his education, but that's really our last option because all our relatives and friends are here. This is our home.\"

[tamarind]

Refer to the above article, note that not all private tutors are good. Even if you spend $1000 a month, it does not guarantee that your child can pass.


It does not mean that if you spend a lot of money sending to enrichment classes or hiring private tutors, you child will do well in Chinese. It is very important to use the correct methods.

Kids learn best between the age of 3 to 6. Parents should make sure that the child learn to recognize as many Chinese characters as possible. It is not necessary to memorize the individual strokes at this age. At this age, the child is able to take a photograph of the whole word and store it in his brain and it is not necessary to practice writing Chinese words.

The author of the http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2009/12/teaching-chinese-at-home.html books wrote that any child is capable of learning enough Chinese words to enable him to read about 80% of Chinese newspapers before entering primary school. I can confirm from personal experience that this is true.

She also wrote that it is very important to read as many story books as possible. The author of another excellent book http://product.dangdang.com/product.aspx?product_id=20464285&ref=search-1-A also wrote the same thing :
小学，甚至初中，没有真正的学业落后，也不存在绝对的成绩优秀，一切都是可逆转的。使情况发生逆转的神奇力量就是：课外阅读。有一根“魔杖”，它确实是有魔力的，哪个孩子一旦被它点中，就会变得更为聪明，在学习和才能上更有潜力。这个“魔杖”是什么，谁能有幸被它点中，这一定是许多人想知道的——请原谅我的故弄玄虚，我不是在讲童话，是在作一个现实的比喻，因为想不出比它更贴切的比喻了。

Once the child is able to read Chinese very well, and has read extensively, he will have no problem writing.

I wrote earlier that parents cannot simply leave all the teaching to the private tutors or the enrichment centers. A child cannot learn a language just by going to tuition twice a week. If we want our child to do well, then we must spend time reading with them everyday.

[relaxedmom]

Tamarind, I agree with you absolutely. My DS reads a lot of English story books from very young, that's why his grasp of vocab and grammar is strong. And he has no problem with English at all. However, for Chinese, I made the mistake of not starting him young and also not being diligent enough in pushing him to read more in Chinese. Now that he is in primary 5, he already detest Chinese. He finds it a struggle. he just got back his chinese results...almost failed his higher chinese. sigh...now I have to think of how to motivate him and improve his chinese :? any tips out there??? I have already tried making him read chinese story books every night (at least a bit each night) and let him watch the 7pm channel 8 show. But so far no improvement.....Help! :?:

[daisyt]

relaxedmom, at this stage P5, there are still ways to improve, although not much time left to handle PSLE. But these methods can be quite boring and need determination. This coming June holidays is the best time to start, try to make it one article on alternate days.


1) Try to pick articles from newspaper or 少年文摘, read aloud, write out the difficult words, find the meaning of the difficult words and 造句
http://www.shnwzb.com/

2) Have a discussion with him on this article. Ask about his feelings on the topics, the characters ... Then get him to write down his 读后感。 Start with about 80 words first, then slowly increase to 100, 200.

3）Go through his 读后感, correct his mistakes and make him copy out the corrected version.

4) Watch Chinese news. Then you can pick a particular news and explain in details to him in Mandarin. Most of the time, they only catch and understand 40% when watching news, hence we need to explain more to them.

5) I remember there is this book for P5 and P6, on 好词 (something like that). Memorise these 词.

6) Go visit places of more Chinese culture and you can start explaining to him in Mandarin or pick on something to discuss. Eg. Haw Par Villa, there are two Chinese museums in Chinatown there.

Chinese story books is fine if you pick those stories not too lengthy or else the kids tend to get tired. I still prefer newspaper and 少年文摘.

There is a website recommended by a parent in another thread, its quite good. Take a look and you can find useful resources there.
http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11094

Hope the above helps. My child did not attend any Chinese tuition or enrichment class before and she did well in PSLE HCL and now still doing fine in Sec.

[hquek]

Hi Tamarind,


I have a query here and would appreciate your advice.

DS1 doesn’t fancy chinese and will never pick up a chinese book on his own. To get him to read, I have to do the reading. Now my problem is that there are some verses/cheng yu that he doesn’t seem to know. So he’ll keep interrupting me to tell me I don’t know.

Half the time, I am not sure if he really doesn’t know, or if he just wants to needle me. But I’m giving him benefit of the doubt.

Should I break the story telling to explain? And is it alright to explain in English if it makes the explanation clearer and easier to understand?

Or should I make markings and come back to it later?

Thanks very much in advance!

[HyperKiasu]

Hi, hquek and Tamarind,


sori, please allow me to jump in. I am very eager to share my experience

I found the online 成语故事大全 is quite good. both my kids like it. you can 百度一下:

http://www.tudou.com/playlist/id/7543615/
http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%B3%C9%D3%EF%B9%CA%CA%C2%B4%F3%C8%AB&oq=%B3%C9%D3%EF&rsp=7&f=3

\"... Should I break the story telling to explain? And is it alright to explain in English if it makes the explanation clearer and easier to understand?
Or should I make markings and come back to it later? ....\"

I have tried all these before, all work well for my kids.
and one more thing, as chinese character is 象形字, e.g, if he knows 木 (wood or tree), i will teach him 林(trees), then 森 (forest). he said that's fun and asked me for some more characters...
but the challenge is not every chinese charecter can be explained in this way.....

[hquek]

thanks hyperkiasu!


It’s not so much of word recognition, rather he’s not sure what a certain term refers to eg 硬嘴 or maybe some other chinese idiom.

When I’m telling the story, it gets quite disruptive when he keep saying I dunno what this means. Am wondering if I should break the story so that he knows what this term means? or just keep going?

And DH complains that I explain in english. it’s not quite right I know but then if I explain in chinese, my chinese being so so, I end up with one big story and sometimes DS1 gets more confused.

But now from time to time, I’ll read half way and make him continue on a bit. Then at least I’ll know if he’s looking at the words or dazing off.

[Brenda10]

daisyt:

relaxedmom, at this stage P5, there are still ways to improve, although not much time left to handle PSLE. But these methods can be quite boring and need determination. This coming June holidays is the best time to start, try to make it one article on alternate days.


1) Try to pick articles from newspaper or 少年文摘, read aloud, write out the difficult words, find the meaning of the difficult words and 造句
http://www.shnwzb.com/

2) Have a discussion with him on this article. Ask about his feelings on the topics, the characters ... Then get him to write down his 读后感。 Start with about 80 words first, then slowly increase to 100, 200.

3）Go through his 读后感, correct his mistakes and make him copy out the corrected version.

4) Watch Chinese news. Then you can pick a particular news and explain in details to him in Mandarin. Most of the time, they only catch and understand 40% when watching news, hence we need to explain more to them.

5) I remember there is this book for P5 and P6, on 好词 (something like that). Memorise these 词.

6) Go visit places of more Chinese culture and you can start explaining to him in Mandarin or pick on something to discuss. Eg. Haw Par Villa, there are two Chinese museums in Chinatown there.

Chinese story books is fine if you pick those stories not too lengthy or else the kids tend to get tired. I still prefer newspaper and 少年文摘.

There is a website recommended by a parent in another thread, its quite good. Take a look and you can find useful resources there.
http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11094

Hope the above helps. My child did not attend any Chinese tuition or enrichment class before and she did well in PSLE HCL and now still doing fine in Sec.

Hi daisyt

Thank you for your valuable post. :goodpost:


My DD is in P5 this year, she is not taking HCL due to few marks shorter to the requirement we did not appeal for her last year. I like your point 3 and think this would be the best way to train for a good compo and attempt to 理解问答. DD has started watching Chinese News (because of Thailand) and read some simple events in Wanbao etc. I hope that she will able to obtain a good grade for CL in next year PSLE.

[daisyt]

hquek:

....

And DH complains that I explain in english. it's not quite right I know but then if I explain in chinese, my chinese being so so, I end up with one big story and sometimes DS1 gets more confused.

hi hquek, I personally do not like the idea of explain in English BUT this is the kind of practise and teaching in dd's sec school now. I guess this is more towards bilingual approach. :roll:

The Chinese teacher even encourage them to write down the meaning of difficult Chinese words in any form (English, drawings, symbols etc.) As long as these \"forms\" can make themselves understand, its fine.

[HyperKiasu]

hquek:

thanks hyperkiasu!


It's not so much of word recognition, rather he's not sure what a certain term refers to eg 硬嘴 or maybe some other chinese idiom.

When I'm telling the story, it gets quite disruptive when he keep saying I dunno what this means. Am wondering if I should break the story so that he knows what this term means? or just keep going?

And DH complains that I explain in english. it's not quite right I know but then if I explain in chinese, my chinese being so so, I end up with one big story and sometimes DS1 gets more confused.

But now from time to time, I'll read half way and make him continue on a bit. Then at least I'll know if he's looking at the words or dazing off.

Hi Hquek,
according to ur profile, ur DS born in 06 is in Nursery, right?
when my DS was in Nursery, he was only interested in 孙悟空. I borrowed a lot of english and chinese books, but he was just interested in the colorful pictures only.... he was not yet ready for readings.....so at that time, my hubby and myself just told the story, we dun read. actually i found it quite boring if i read chinese story word by word to him. thus we have to read stories ourselves before storytelling. (strangely, we dont feel bored if we read english story word by word to him)
as he grows older he picks up reading habits quite naturally. Now he is in P1, he sometimes borrows chinese story book from school library by himself but he needs us to read to him if there are no pinyin. we only explain key words to help him understand the story. thus disruption can be minimized....and i think at the early stage, it is more important to sustain his interest in reading chinese books thus i allow him to skip some words....