Bi-lingualism at school a mistake ?
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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. -
ks2me:
That looks really interesting ! OK I must go and buy this. Aiyah but cannot buy from Jurong Point. Must find time to go to Bras Basah.
Actually I have a mahjong set to share too...tamarind:
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. -
tamarind:
Can order online and free delivery in SG or wait for Chief to give an auction on this.
That looks really interesting ! OK I must go and buy this. Aiyah but cannot buy from Jurong Point. Must find time to go to Bras Basah.
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ks2me:
OIC free delivery. OK thanks. I have not tried the auction before
Can order online and free delivery in SG or wait for Chief to give an auction on this.tamarind:
That looks really interesting ! OK I must go and buy this. Aiyah but cannot buy from Jurong Point. Must find time to go to Bras Basah.
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tamarind:
OIC free delivery. OK thanks. I have not tried the auction before
Just look out for the auction thread and see if this is one of the xmas gift Chief wants to give and if so, he will start a thread to solicit registration by asking you to pledge some points. Then when the time of auction comes, ensure you have a good clock/watch that ties in with KSP clock and send your bid online. Each auction will last 15 mins and the last person who bid the highest gets the items. This is where you will start to enjoy the fun, so I shan't say more... My suggestion is you go and try to bid for the netbook this round since you have considerably KSP points I believe, and get some first hand experience in bidding, then you will know how to bid for future items that you want next time.
Sorry to hijack this thread with bidding info...
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ks2me:
Just look out for the auction thread and see if this is one of the xmas gift Chief wants to give and if so, he will start a thread to solicit registration by asking you to pledge some points. Then when the time of auction comes, ensure you have a good clock/watch that ties in with KSP clock and send your bid online. Each auction will last 15 mins and the last person who bid the highest gets the items. This is where you will start to enjoy the fun, so I shan't say more... My suggestion is you go and try to bid for the netbook this round since you have considerably KSP points I believe, and get some first hand experience in bidding, then you will know how to bid for future items that you want next time.
Sorry to hijack this thread with bidding info...
Thanks for the explanation
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