Bi-lingualism at school a mistake ?
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cafelatte:
tamarind:
... kids should start by learning the 部首 and the simple Chinese characters first. This is also how the kids learn in Berries. My younger boy is only average, but he has no problem learning these with minimal practice. Berries do not require kids to do daily homework. ..
However, this is not the structure taken by MOE or once the child is in P1. The Chinese textbooks are thematic based...just like the English textbooks. The 听写单follows the theme. Furthermore, in SA1/SA2, the child will be required to write 句子and later in P2-看图写画。
Does anyone knows :
1) Guide books which list and explain all the 部首 ? eg.
讠- 言字旁，related to words. and list the related 汉字“说、讲、讨、话
2) Where to find the list of 3,500 commonly used Chinese characters ?
That's why many parents know that they cannot depend on MOE to teach Chinese. They are sending their kids to good enrichment classes like Berries to learn Chinese using effective methods.
Good books to learn Chinese are not available in Singapore. Try searching in http://www.dangdang.com. I am trying to get this series of books from China :
幼儿快速识字阅读法
http://product.dangdang.com/product.aspx?product_id=20645179
“四五快读”的汉字与小学课本同步，坚持半年可学完本套书，可以认识近千汉字，4000余词语（含130成语、俗语）。孩子入学后，即可轻松进入学习状态。 -
rains:
tamarind,
Actually, I don't quite understand what you mean by \"remembering how to write Chinese characters by strokes is wrong\".
When I write a Chinese character, I have a mental picture of how the character looks like, then I will write it stroke by stroke, and I will endeavour to ensure that I'm following the strokes correctly. When people ask me how to write a certain word and there's no 部首, I will also tell and show them in strokes. Why can't you remember how to write the characters in strokes?
The keyword is \"remember\". I remember Chinese words by their parts, not by the strokes.
For example, this word
游
can be split into
氵 方 子 (and the 2 strokes on top, don't know how to type)
Then it is sort of like remembering the spelling of English words.
This works provided kids are taught the 部首 and the simplest characters from a very young age. Once they have a good foundation, then when they see a word, they can naturally break it up in their mind in order to remember it.
We should also remember words in groups, for example :
弟 第 梯 涕 剃
My boy learned to write the word 弟 at 4 years old. In the future, when he learns the other words, he only has to remember to add the correct 部首 will do. The 部首 gives clues to the meaning of the words. For example, ladder is made of wood : 梯.
In fact, I found memorizing English spelling much worst without the knowledge of phonics, because English words can have so many letters. The most difficult Chinese words probably have 4 or 5 parts only.
Anyway this is not a method that I invented. My Chinese teachers used to teach the students this way.
[quote]ooo ... the dangdang website is so cute! I mean the books! It makes me want to read too! Haha, I love children's books! But there's no way to look at the pages of the books first right? How do you know whether it will be too simple or difficult for your kids?
I got another question which I hope won't frustrate you: how to buy huh? The currency is in NT is it? How come it looks like yen to me? But NT also not correct, how can it be so cheap? I'm so sorry. I'm a techophobic.
Does dangdang deliver right to your doorstep? How long does that take?[/quote]Yes dangdang delivers to Singapore addresses. But we need to have a Citibank credit card to order online. The website is from China, the currency is RMB. It takes about 4 to 6 weeks.
This bookshop http://bras-basah-complex.com.sg/bbc/2_shops/en_level_detail_1.asp?sid=03-005 at Bras Basah carries many books from dangdang. You can browse there. But the prices are so much more expensive than the website.
In order to choose suitable books from dangdang, you can select the correct age group for your kids. Of course remember that in China the standard of Chinese is much higher than our kids. -
Agree Maha YuYi has better Chinese books. They sell the books in SGD with the RMB price...eg RMB10, SGD10
then give some 10-20% discounts at times. Usually this period, year-end and school holidays, they will run some promotions.
I don't like the english->chinese translated books they carry. The 语法 is really kind of odd.
tamarind, I understand about Berries and about cannot rely on MOE. What I meant was once the children are in mainstream primary school, there's the pressure to keep up with what is being tested/exam-ed in school. Thus, it is thus difficult to keep up with the \"homeschool\" way of learning Chinese. Time have to be spent to cope with illogical 听写 list,理解问答and 作文。
tamarind, btw....dangdang only accepts Citibank credit card but not other bank ? -
tamarind:
I agree with the use of 'group', but I thought you need to be quite advanced in your learning of Chinese before you're able to apply that.The keyword is \"remember\". I remember Chinese words by their parts, not by the strokes.
For example, this word
游
can be split into
氵 方 子 (and the 2 strokes on top, don't know how to type)
Then it is sort of like remembering the spelling of English words.
This works provided kids are taught the 部首 and the simplest characters from a very young age. Once they have a good foundation, then when they see a word, they can naturally break it up in their mind in order to remember it.
We should also remember words in groups, for example :
弟 第 梯 涕 剃
My boy learned to write the word 弟 at 4 years old. In the future, when he learns the other words, he only has to remember to add the correct 部首 will do. The 部首 gives clues to the meaning of the words. For example, ladder is made of wood : 梯.
In fact, I found memorizing English spelling much worst without the knowledge of phonics, because English words can have so many letters. The most difficult Chinese words probably have 4 or 5 parts only.
Anyway this is not a method that I invented. My Chinese teachers used to teach the students this way.
I cannot agree wholly with the remembering of the characters by parts though. My kid keeps trying to remember the characters by parts, and I feel that it seems to interfere with her learning of Chinese. To me, it's very weird to remember characters like that, unless you're rote-learning a complicated word like 赢. And my kid is not able to retain the writing of the characters on a long term basis when she remembers them by parts. She would say things like,\"尖 is 小大.\" which doesn't amuse me at all. I actually discourage her from using this method. To counter that, I ask her questions to prompt her for the部首and I prefer her to remember the characters as a whole word or as a symbol. I am not expecting instantaneous results but I hope that by doing so, I can help to make her see Chinese characters as individual words on their own and eventually, build a firm foundation for her in the long run.
Do your kids benefit from learning to write the characters from remember them in parts?
I am just wondering what prompted you to send your kids to Berries at 4 when you're such an enthusiastic teaching mother? I didn't believe in sending my kid for enrichment or tuition, but now I am starting to have the \"ïf you can't beat them, join them\" mentality. -
rains:
I think so for our case. Whenever my dd asks me how to write a Chinese character, without writing to show her, I have to break down the character into simpler charaters and she will be able to understand what I mean and write out the character herself.
Do your kids benefit from learning to write the characters from remember them in parts?
For example, she asks me how to write 埋?
She knows 土 and she knows 里, then I just verbalise that it is a left/right character starting with 土 and 里 on the right then she will go....\"Orrrrrrggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I know already.\"
I think Chinese character is like lego pieces put together.
If one knows all the basic pieces, it can be used to \"stack\" all the various combo to form meaningful characters.
When I have the time, I will try to blog an extension to this discussion on \"Learning Chinese Characters the Lego way\"....
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My 2 older children (in sec schools) are still struggling in CL. They never fail to fail paper 2 or 3 of their CL exams. :stupid: My youngest child (K2) is the only one with a flair for the language.
This is what I have observed which have resulted in this difference in CL ability.
I have an English speaking home environment. The 2 older kids were taken care of by domestic maids who spoke English to them too. Therefore, there is a total lack of Mandarin at home apart from some TV shows in Mandarin which did not help. They just could not pick the language up from passive learning.
My youngest child was sent to a child care centre from age 4. She went in there w/o any knowledge of Mandarin. The child care has a Mandarin speaking environment. Even its Malay and Indian children are communicating in Mandarin ! :shock: Naturally, she comes back crying every day and detest going in the morning. I perserved and within half a year, she was coming home and communicating with me in short simple Mandarin. As time goes on, as I continued to speak to her in English, she would answer me in Mandarin which she has become more comfortable with. Eventually, I switched to speaking Mandarin to her.
I realised that children's language environment play a very pivotal role in shaping their language ability. They have to start young. My 2 older children still faced resistance (mentally) when it comes to CL. I am still trying very hard to instil the importance of CL to them but children nowadays dun take to reasons like roots, culture, emerging China market, etc. They probably think that they can just turn to the western world at any time ? :? -
ks2me:
I think so for our case. Whenever my dd asks me how to write a Chinese character, without writing to show her, I have to break down the character into simpler charaters and she will be able to understand what I mean and write out the character herself.rains:
Do your kids benefit from learning to write the characters from remember them in parts?
For example, she asks me how to write 埋?
She knows 土 and she knows 里, then I just verbalise that it is a left/right character starting with 土 and 里 on the right then she will go....\"Orrrrrrggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I know already.\"
I think Chinese character is like lego pieces put together.
If one knows all the basic pieces, it can be used to \"stack\" all the various combo to form meaningful characters.
When I have the time, I will try to blog an extension to this discussion on \"Learning Chinese Characters the Lego way\"....
I really like your analogy of the lego pieces ! Totally agree with you. -
rains:
My kids automatically break up the characters into parts. I did not have to teach them that way. My 5 year old boy is already doing that.
Do your kids benefit from learning to write the characters from remember them in parts?
I am just wondering what prompted you to send your kids to Berries at 4 when you're such an enthusiastic teaching mother? I didn't believe in sending my kid for enrichment or tuition, but now I am starting to have the \"ïf you can't beat them, join them\" mentality.
I remember learning the word 赢 when I was young, I broke it into parts and instantly memorized it, by reciting \"wang2 kou3 yue4 bei4 fan2\". This method works only if a child knows the basic characters very well.
My problem is that it is difficult to find good teaching materials for Chinese in Singapore. I have only recently discovered http://www.dangdang.com and the wonderful materials there. If I have found it earlier, I may not need to send the kids to Berries. Also, I am a full time working mom and I really cannot afford to spend so much time teaching the kids. I can only manage to teach English and Maths, and I have to teach each child individually, since the 2 kids are one year apart and have very different learning abilities. -
[quote]
I realised that children's language environment play a very pivotal role in shaping their language ability. They have to start young. My 2 older children still faced resistance (mentally) when it comes to CL. I am still trying very hard to instil the importance of CL to them but children nowadays dun take to reasons like roots, culture, emerging China market, etc. They probably think that they can just turn to the western world at any time ?[/quote]Actually I don't tell my kids the reasons that they need to learn Chinese at all. The only thing I have done is to try to make learning Chinese fun for them. The first step is to send them to Berries class They have lots of fun in the class. The second step is to find fascinating Chinese books for them, like these books in my blog :
http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2008/07/chinese-books.html
http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2009/12/reading-chinese-books.html
They love the books so much that they want to read these books over and over again every night before they sleep.
The next step is to introduce them to the history of China, and the world of swordsmen, 武俠 . That is when Hong Kong TV series play an important part I did not want them to watch too much TV when they were younger. I will wait till they are in primary school, then let them watch together with me. -
tamarind:
Actually I have a mahjong set to share too...
I really like your analogy of the lego pieces ! Totally agree with you.
Using this 部首approach, you can play this mahjong game and have lots of fun.
http://colorwise.com.sg/creativetilegenie.htm
Chief, this can potentially be another auction item.
Tamarind, you should have enough points to auction for this if it comes true.
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