Teaching Chinese at Home

[tamarind]

puff:

jedamum:

[quote=\"puff\"]Hi

My DD is 5 yr old this year ... I tried to teach Chinese at home by giving her 听写, but I realized 1 or 2 days after her 听写 she will forget the words.
Any ideas or method that I can try so she will remember the words?

听写 for 5yo? :faint:

what sort of words do you give her for 听写 ? is it school based?

if it is for word recognition purpose, you don't have to give the kid 听写 for her to learn to recognise the words.

I give common words like 的, 你 etc. Of course I do read to her too but I feel in order to remember n recognize the word better is to be able to write.
She is in K1 this yr n her sch do give her writing for Chinese too.
I am surprise that you :faint: when I mention 听写 for 5 yo, many well known kindergarten already giving their k1 kids 听写, isn't it?[/quote]
Hi puff,
Kindergarten give 听写 because parents expect it ! If a kindergarten does not have 听写, many parents will start to worry and send their kids elsewhere. Parents, especially those who are much better in English than Chinese, always think that children must write words in order to remember them. This is a misconception and it is the best way to make children hate Chinese.

Read what MandyMummy wrote:

MandyMummy:

Young childern are very sensitive to image and their shapes. You will be amazed at how easy they can recognize Chinese characters. Once they learn to recognize the characters, it helps them in reading and later on, spelling (ting xie).

Young children are capable of remembering whole words as pictures in their brains. When they want to write a word, they just recall the whole picture. There is no need to make them practice writing it stroke by stroke. When my boy was about 4 years old, one day he wrote the word 我 and showed me. I was amazed because I never made him practice writing that word before, but he had read the word many times in story books. Another thing that amazed me at that age, is that he knew that 找 and 我 are 2 completely different words, even though they are so similar. My boy is only of average learning ability.

Children need to know more than 500 Chinese words very well in order to read story books independently. It is impossible to make them practice writing all these words, and even if they do, they will not remember them.

As I wrote earlier, get the Si Wu Kuai Du book 1 and read the first 30 pages written by a professor in China to learn how Chinese should be taught to children. The reason why so many children hate to learn Chinese in Singapore, is because English educated parents are using the wrong methods to teach them without realizing it.

Please remember that sheer hard work when learning a language does not guarantee success. You need to learn what are the best methods to teach.

[Brenda10]

tamarind:

Brenda10:

Hi Tamarind,


Share with you something interesting while we were discussing the appropriate phrases to put in 一段作文情节，，DD suggested to add in 仿佛中了邪似的 as it was quite suitable for that situation. I asked her how to write 邪 and she tell me this word is same with 辟邪剑法！

I find that she has better phrases and more ci yu after reading of so many CL story books.

Hi Brenda,
Your daughter reminds me of myself when I was in school, I loved to use 仿佛...似的 though teachers never taught us. I knew perfectly how to use it because I often read it in book.

You are absolutely right that reading extensively is the best way to learn good phrases !

Hi Tamarind,

I'm glad to hear that this is one of your favorable phrases for writing CL comp.

Yes, DD teacher does comment that she uses quite a lot of phrases and ci yu which are not taught at their level especially when attempt to 理解问题。

[indigoblue]

puff:

Hi

My DD is 5 yr old this year ... I tried to teach Chinese at home by giving her 听写, but I realized 1 or 2 days after her 听写 she will forget the words.
Any ideas or method that I can try so she will remember the words?

hi puff

the reason why she forgets the words after few days may be bcos she is just remembering the words for the sake of 听写。
Try doing it the fun way like hquek, or u can read very simple story books to her when you can. Better if the words are big. So she can see the words as u read. Read the same books as many time as u can ,as long as she is not bored. Its all about 'repetition'. The more she sees ,the more she remembers. Later u may progress to writing the words... then maybe ting xie.
Just my 2 cents. Bye.

[Serendipity]

Been trying to coach DD on my own using Ji Chu Han Zi and SWKD. Glad to say that she's responding well and is learning new words. So I'm happy that there's a DIY way to help DD with word recognition, thanks to the tips from parents here!


I'm wondering though if I shld still send her for enrichment classes to help with the oral component. Cos she's not very willing to speak Mandarin to me and hubby. Only speaks her broken Mandarin to her grandfather, haha...

Any thoughts, everyone?

[ksme]

Brenda10:

Hi Tamarind,


Share with you something interesting while we were discussing the appropriate phrases to put in 一段作文情节，，DD suggested to add in 仿佛中了邪似的 as it was quite suitable for that situation. I asked her how to write 邪 and she tell me this word is same with 辟邪剑法！

I find that she has better phrases and more ci yu after reading of so many CL story books.

Congratulations Brenda! My ds have not been progressing much on his chinese reading. It's been a busy year. Must work hard to get him to read more chinese book at this coming holiday liao. Your dd is our role model!

[phtthp]

ksme, i pm you.

[Brenda10]

ksme:

Brenda10:

Hi Tamarind,


Share with you something interesting while we were discussing the appropriate phrases to put in 一段作文情节，，DD suggested to add in 仿佛中了邪似的 as it was quite suitable for that situation. I asked her how to write 邪 and she tell me this word is same with 辟邪剑法！

I find that she has better phrases and more ci yu after reading of so many CL story books.

Congratulations Brenda! My ds have not been progressing much on his chinese reading. It's been a busy year. Must work hard to get him to read more chinese book at this coming holiday liao. Your dd is our role model!

Hi ksme,

Thank you for your encouragement.

This year end holiday will be the best timing to pick up the CL story books. In fact, DD also started reading more since last November.

Jiayou! :rahrah:

[laughingcat]

Congrats Brenda! Your hardwork pays well.


Both you and Tamarind are my role model in teaching chinese at home.

I hope in due time i can achieve the same result as Tamarind and Brenda in getting my children to love to read Chinese books. Nowadays, when i passed english and chinese story books to them, they rather pick up english story books first. I will perservere.

[puff]

Thanks all for the tips and advises.

[tamarind]

laughingcat:

Congrats Brenda! Your hardwork pays well.


Both you and Tamarind are my role model in teaching chinese at home.

I hope in due time i can achieve the same result as Tamarind and Brenda in getting my children to love to read Chinese books. Nowadays, when i passed english and chinese story books to them, they rather pick up english story books first. I will perservere.

Hi laughingcat and all other parents,
I really hope that you don't believe people who tell you that it is impossible to learn Chinese the fun way, and that you must make a child memorize many hours of Chinese model essays in order to be good at it. I have always enjoyed learning Chinese and I have never memorized any model essays, but I always score very high marks in Chinese all the way to JC. Most importantly, I continue to read Chinese books and newspapers all my life. If you force a child to learn Chinese the hard way, your child will hate to use Chinese when he is an adult. One important point to note is that, a child who memorize Chinese without understand is very likely to make mistakes and get even more marks deducted. The best way to learn Chinese is always to read extensively, because when children encounter the same words in many different sentences, she will understand how to use it much better than those who simply memorized it.

My girl now writes very good Chinese essays without my help, and best of all, she writes on her own initiative. Do you want to force a child to memorize Chinese model essays for many hours a day all the way to secondary school ? Or do you want a child who is very motivated to learn Chinese on her own, enjoys reading Chinese books and don't have to bother you at all ? It is absolutely possible to nurture the second type of children. Parents should learn what is the best methods of learning Chinese from the educational experts. Most of what I have written so far is inspired by the authors of the bestselling parenting and educational books in China. Also, instead of spending time looking for assessment books and model compositions, parents should spend time researching for books that will interest your child.

As for those parents who force their children to memorize essays, they totally do not understand the purpose of education.