Teaching Chinese at Home

[toddles]

hquek:

toddles:

I thought speaking is the easiest... just watch enough mandarin TV hahaha...
i think speaking is so much easier to pick up for non-ethnic chinese who want to learn it. there are so many angmohs who speak fluently but cannot write or read at all. same for most languages (e.g. thai).

some of my peers started their kids on Tao shu... but I haven't researched it well enough to decide whether or not to start. It seems like the banana's quick fix to learning chinese.

Beg to differ. I had seen my classmates who can't speak chinese for nuts get A2 in O's becos they memorised cheng yu by the dozens and liberally peppered their essays with such - and btw, they failed their oral.

wow - that's very impressive mugging. I suppose a parallel to mainlanders who can't speak but can write beautiful english.

[tamarind]

toddles:

tamarind:

For parents who think that the sequence of strokes, or 笔顺 is important, just teach the kids these 7 rules will do :


笔顺的口诀有七点：自上而下，从左到右，先中间后左右，先横后竖，先撇后捺，先外后内，先进后关。

Don't need to spend many years learning the proper strokes of every character.

that's a neat 口诀, but on this 先中间后左右, what kind of characters does it refer to? 竖 or perhaps 进 types?

An example is the word 水. Write the middle, then the left and right.

[hquek]

toddles:

hquek:

[quote=\"toddles\"]
I thought speaking is the easiest... just watch enough mandarin TV hahaha...
i think speaking is so much easier to pick up for non-ethnic chinese who want to learn it. there are so many angmohs who speak fluently but cannot write or read at all. same for most languages (e.g. thai).

some of my peers started their kids on Tao shu... but I haven't researched it well enough to decide whether or not to start. It seems like the banana's quick fix to learning chinese.

Beg to differ. I had seen my classmates who can't speak chinese for nuts get A2 in O's becos they memorised cheng yu by the dozens and liberally peppered their essays with such - and btw, they failed their oral.

[/quote]True, impressive mugging...I was amazed becos I can speak with clear diction, but my written quite cannot make it - only mustered a B3. BTW, I didnt read chinese books when young, it was purely a staple diet of Channel 8. Am making up for lost time (reading) now (the things I do for my kids).

wow - that's very impressive mugging. I suppose a parallel to mainlanders who can't speak but can write beautiful english.

[Brenda10]

Extracted from http://www.zaobao.com.sg/edu/pages5/edunews110119.shtml


考试方式也必须配合整个大方向做出改变，让学生学什么就考什么，将来毕业后还能继续学以致用。因此，考试的形式需要增添互动性，而且更切合实际。比如口试时，让学生看录像对话，取代看图说话；文字考试也会测试学生使用电邮交流的能力。日后，中学和高中的部分会考，会让学生用电脑作答。

Yesterday news had reported that only Secondary school onward have to use the computer for a section of test like reply email. May be in future they may extend to priamry school too.

[toddles]

tamarind:

toddles:

[quote=\"tamarind\"]For parents who think that the sequence of strokes, or 笔顺 is important, just teach the kids these 7 rules will do :


笔顺的口诀有七点：自上而下，从左到右，先中间后左右，先横后竖，先撇后捺，先外后内，先进后关。

Don't need to spend many years learning the proper strokes of every character.

that's a neat 口诀, but on this 先中间后左右, what kind of characters does it refer to? 竖 or perhaps 进 types?

An example is the word 水. Write the middle, then the left and right.[/quote]啊！明白了，谢谢！

[keltong]

Hi tamarind, read your blog after getting to know it and love it. Will be putting it into practice for my K1 boy. My P5 boy a bit too late, now he not only hate chinese, he FEAR it…really, the thought of chinese frightens him. I am still trying to figure out how to help him improve his chinese. it’s bad bad bad…so don’t want to the same to happen on my 2nd one. So need to start now when he is a sponge. Cheers!

[Liz_Ryan]

tamarind:

The best way to teach is to read books without hanyu pinyin and with parental guidance, because kids will have to focus on the character and try to remember the words.
...................................
When they start to read story books, if parents can sit with them and help them with new words, that will further boost their confidence. If a child is left on his own, he will not be motivated to read and will give up easily.

I think that the best way to cultivate a love for reading Chinese books, is to read together with the child everyday.

Hi Tamarind,

That was actually a very good advice. I have been doing that for English and now I am glad that I see so much improvement in my son's reading.

I bought for him some Chinese Children DVD called \"Happy Wonderland\" and made him watch few times a week. He enjoys it and sometimes would sing along to the song.

Am just wondering, do you know if there are children books that come with cd that will help kids read along?

Am so sorry if I've been asking stupid questions :?: , I am just so worried that I'm willing to find out anything at all that can help my boy in his Chinese....

[phankao]

tamarind:

phankao:

The issue for a 1year old reader, is not only the size of the words. It is also because they emphasize the picture more than the words. You yourself already described the books as \"Picture Books\". That is distracting to a very young reader. Words should be larger than the pictures, and preferably on separate pages without the distraction of the pictures. That's why I like the books that I posted up there. Some of the books, I make myself based on day-to-day experiences. Lots of words too, by the time it comes to the more difficult levels. But expensive lah.

I don't agree with you that words must be bigger than pictures. It is very important for young kids to look at pictures for as long as they want, while they read. Pictures help kids to understand what they are reading. Otherwise kids may know many words but don't understand the meaning, or how to use them.

The books in my blog are all best selling books and well loved by many young kids in China, I believe that mainland China parents know better than us when it comes to teaching Chinese to their kids.

Am not saying that the books you recommend are not good. My original question was whether there are books where the pictures are the focus instead of words. I will look through your list, altho' the 1st few I saw, I noticed on Dangdang.com that there are no inside views.

And, I am of the same opinon for English books too, not just Chinese books. Pictures are there to illustrate the story. If the pictures are the main focus, then the kids would tend to just look at the pictures and not the words that much, especially for very young kids. And there are many kids who go up to p1 pretending to read books, and often have a healthy imagination in making up their own stories with just the pictures in the books, but they really don't actually know how to read.

[phankao]

It actually doesn’t take long to use HYPY to type. I am using Google HYPY input. Just have to type the first hypy letters of every character and the whole sentence would come out. Once in a while it’s not correct, that’s all. It’s similar to the HYPY input used for Handphones - that’s why you see the chinese can type so fast into their handphones.

[phankao]

toddles:

Quite amazing - you have 3 (or 4?) kids and still put in the time and effort to teach them mandarin yourself.

I have 4 kids. I only speak in mandarin to no.4 since he was a baby. He's effectively bilingual and an often translate bc the rest of the family speaks to him in English.

I only do these for his books bc this boy devours books and could read from 10months old. So it may seem like alot of books lah, simply bc he's still so young (2yo). Both English & Chinese. English - he can read many on his own already. Chinese too - of course depending on the standard. I like the ones where the picture is on a separate page bc he'd be distracted and look at the picture instead, so what I do is fold the book in half to have him read the words first b4 i left him explore the picture.