Comparing Chinese Enrichment (Primary/Preschool)

[Wannabe]

Dear fellow parents, saw the ads by Changchun Language School for chinese compo recently. Anyone has experience with this centre so far?

[GG Leong]

Pebblesrock, I suggest that you pay both the centers a visit and feel about them yourselves. Ultimately, you have to be comfortable with your choice. I brought my 2 children; they decided that they want to be in Xuelin because of the environment, teachers and materials. I must say that their materials are very current, using newspaper! which I like. (indirectly getting them to read).I am surprised to see my elder one trying hard to plan her schedule to fit into Xuelin's. I hope this positive push can substain :rahrah:

[hsm]

hello all


My girl in P4 this year.. she was doing ok for P1 & 2 for her chinese.. and she started having private tuition for chinese since P2. However her chinese seems to get worst in P3, then now in P4, she failed badly in her CA1.. paying quite a lot for her current tutor who is a ex-school teacher.

I'm very concerned and thought perhaps she cannot 'focus' too much when having 1-to-1.. so i decided to try group lesson, perhaps it will be more 'interactive'.. signed up for Tien Hsia, she was quite happy with her 1st lesson tho..

but i realised Tien Hsia only teaches higher chinese but her 'normal chinese' is already very bad. On her 1st lesson, teacher says there's a lot of words she didnt know.. ya, i know her standard is definitely will not be up to speed esp when the rest of the children could have probably started with TH for a while..

I'm not sure it's a wise decision for dd.. but have to complete one term to see how it goes.

The problem with dd is reading and even recognising them. Even for ting xie, i have to coach her.. initally i simply thought she is lazy.. but sometimes, i'm worried is she having dyslexia? i tried the self assessment, and looks like she is not..

This year, i'm fortunate my company allows to switch to part time work. So i'm now trying to coach my girl yourself.. everyday will revise the chinese words with her, repeating the same words and learning new words each day.. hopefully she gets to \"remember\" the more words and know the meanings.. now i'm also using TH's material to do revision with her.. it seems a 'huge jump' to dd when i read the notes..

if anyone has 'tips' to learn chinese, please share with me.. i like to try different methods and see which suits dd best

Cheers

[Monster Mummy]

Hi,


My boy has been in Tien Hsia for years and his school also cover normal Chinese. Good thing about Tien Hsia they got cobstantly revision and mock test and exam for us to gauge where the child fare. but overall he is coping still ok. But last year his result dropped very badly. One of the problem is he is too lazy and this year I have been constantly make him 郎读 the words for that week. Occasionally, ask him to revise back the words. You can borrow some story book simplified to get your child to read because it will help in the comprehension and help in the composition writing. Because most of the time the kid fare badly in the comprehension.

[cherrygal]

hi hsm

If you are worried abt not catching up at Tien Hsia, you can try Berries. They have normal Chinese classes as well as Higher Chinese. Why stress her up if her CL is already weak? Most impt is for her to like the subject. No point doing HCL when her school is not doing. She may be more depressed if she has to struggle with the subject.

Downside for Berries is the huge class size (12 - 16). If she likes group study, this may be for her. My fren has also recommended Beijing Language School at Sengkang. She said her gal can recite poems and finds the CL lessons at her primary school too easy... :boogie:

[cherrygal]

hsm:

if anyone has 'tips' to learn chinese, please share with me.. i like to try different methods and see which suits dd best

Cheers

On a personal note, I went for group tuition at a former school teacher's house when I was a kid. The group was as large as >20 students. We would all sit round a huge rectangular table with the teacher seated at one end.

We had to do lots of loud reading, taking turns, stressing on the hanyu pinyin of new words. We also had tingxie, moxie, compo, compre, mock tests etc and would get caned on the hand if we failed any of these tests. We also had to do lots of rote learning of chengyu and their meanings (memorize 20 phrases per week). We'll be verbally tested during the session.

She was super popular as a fierce tuition teacher... and I liked the friendly competition and results I got. I got average results in P1 and P2 as I came from a purely English speaking family (parents can't speak at all), and was in a gantang mission school. After I started tuition in P3, I managed to get \"Best in Chinese\" prizes yearly and scored an A* for Chinese. The foundation she laid also enabled me to sail past my Chinese at O Levels (A1) without any tuition.

If your gal can tahan some serious intense learning like what I described above (twice a week for 2hrs), you can try to teach her yourself or get a similar type of group tutor.

[hsm]

Thanks for the replies


yes, i'm concerned if my girl can catchup, but i guess i need to let her have a try and see how it goes... good thing abt Tien Hsia now, the class size is quite alright. 7 students including my girl cos i'm bringing her to the weekday afternoon class...

She has only done 1 lesson so far, and she was happy with it.. the teacher is quite friendly.. hopefully she gets better after a few more lessons

[smurf]

Hi Cherrygal,


is the tuition teacher still around? mean does she still teach?

[cherrygal]

smurf:

Hi Cherrygal,


is the tuition teacher still around? mean does she still teach?

Haha, she's already in her late seventies... retired liao
I'll wait for my boy to start doing badly before I try to intro her style of tough tutoring... He's one stubborn boy who 不见棺材不掉泪。

[Pebblesrock]

Hib may I ask which centre- Xue Lin or Tien hsia is better for a secondary 2 student for me? I just passes on the dot or Chinese