Comparing Chinese Enrichment (Primary/Preschool)

[kola]

Hi 24hr-mum,

Thanks for your reply…
From many of your previous mail, it seems that you had tried many Chinese tuition centre for compre and compo class.
Do you finally settled with Yang laoshi in Kovan? Is it the better one from all you had tried?
Have you tried Molin oral and compo class as well?
Sorry for having so many questions :oops:
TIA

[24hr-mum]

i just started yang laoshi for my p1 based on friend recommendation. wanted my p4 to try but she doesnt want to go classes.

the content wise is higher standard than centres that are locally based. cos yang laoshi is by china teachers. didnt try molin cos too far

[kola]

Hi 24hr-mum,

Thanks for your reply…

[Sharina]

My son is turning 4 this October and I need to start sending him to chinese classes before he starts school next year.


I’m Malay and my husband is chinese, but we communicate only in English, therefore my son dosent know any chinese, but i intend for him to take up chinese for his second language.

Any recommendations for a good centre that can help him learn chinese from scratch? we’re moving to bedok soon so preferably around that area.

Please help!

[Imami]

Berries! Berries! Berries!


Or u can try tien hsia too.

[Sharina]

I got google. Berries, Tien hsia, skylace and molin.


but need to know got anyone send their kids there before and have feedbacks?

[Imami]

Mine goes to berries. He started at three years old. But we are a Chinese family la, so there’s more Chinese influence and I very pro-Chinese. Not trying to show off but just to explain why i strongly support berries - at the 6th lesson (middle of first term), there was a revision/test. The children are tested on word recognition - those that they had learnt in the past 6 lessons. My child scored 100% but of cos, he might not be the only one.


Each lesson there were new vocab, about two vocab per lessons. So 6 weeks would be at least twelve. I didn’t do any additional work with my child back then, so all credits were his own and the teachers’.

Now, my child is four, berries is doing simple idioms with them. I am very impressed with their methodology and their way of making lessons fun. Every lessons, they have little props to make the lessons more interesting. Eg when they were teaching furnitures at home, the children were given a picture of house and small pieces of stickers (in the form of furniture) to stick in the "room".

From the way I see it, they teach Chinese by introducing concepts, things and people in a child’s life. So first few lessons are about the face - nose, mouth, eyes etc. Then move on the family members and then to food, toys and school material eg books, pen etc.

[Sharina]

Thanks Imami for the feedback!! :rahrah:


end month I will be going down to a few places before I make my choice. gonna bring my MIL in case they want to know who can revise with him at home. she 100% chinese auntie~

[poohwee]

any feedback on the beijing Pasir ris?

[leongmichael]

I find that it really depends a lot on the mix of children and teacher.


In 2010, when my son was 4, I sent him to Berries for a year. In 2011, when he was 5, I sent him to Tien Hsia for a year too. I also sent him for chinese speech & drama at the CC nearby from Nov 2010 to around Jan 2011.

After all the effort, I find the results dissappointing - my son still dont say a word of chinese. It may be because he is from a complete english speaking home & environment, but I was hoping that he would have been able to speak a little.
To be honest, whenever I meet the teachers to discuss, they would complain that my son was inattentive & playful.

I find the class size in Berries too big, it was about 15 kids, and there may not be enough attention for a boy that does not know a word of chinese.
I find the teacher in tsien hsia, whose size was about 8, very cooperative, she would pay more attention to my son, make him sit in front, follow through with him on most of the class activities - but the mix of boys in the class were playful and that may have diverted his attention.
The speech & drama class at the CC was terrible - the teacher only paid attention to those who could understand chinese and totally ignored those who did not understand her. And the class size was about 12 kids.

After 3 years with zoophonics, I changed my son to K2 at a fullday childcare at a HDB neighbourhood. I had stopped all chinese enrichment. He began to be able to communicate in very basic chinese and 2 weeks back I was so surprised and proud to hear my son recite sanzijin!