Teaching Chinese at Home

[phankao]

smurf:

Erm, is chInese so difficult to learn?? There is so much emphasis given to Chinese. :?


I find that English is more difficult to learn than Chinese, especially grammar. I can never write proper poetic English.

It's difficult to me! That's why I always wanted to give my kids a headstart. Didn't want them to grow up hating chinese, so enrolled them in SAP schools. Unfortunately, it's only been a 1/3 success story for the older 3. Only 1 out of the 3 older ones really like chinese, altho' at least they don't totally hate it like is quite the case in a more \"ang moh\" school environment.

[Vinarc]

smurf:

Erm, is chInese so difficult to learn?? There is so much emphasis given to Chinese. :?

Not really, Chinese is easy to learn if the child has the passion in it. Most important is to built their passion while they are young by exposing them to lots of chinese reading books, fun words and chengyu stories, to build a strong foundation.

[tamarind]

phankao:

DangDang.com have these types of books or not?

dangdang.com has tons and tons of pictures books, without hanyu pinyin. The books listed in my blog for ages 2 to 6 are picture books without hanyu pinyin (all except 2 books) from my home library:

http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-to-raise-bilingual-child.html

Each book costs $3+ on average including shipping to Singapore. There are thousands more titles in dangdang. Those that I listed are excellent books that kids will love. Although the books are for young kids, the words are challenging for adults in Singapore.

The books are not always very big, but not very small either. I would say the size is medium. Chinese parents do not think that very young kids should read books with huge words, and probably that is why their kids can read long novels with small words by 7 or 8 years old. I think they are right.

[tamarind]

Vinarc:

smurf:

Erm, is chInese so difficult to learn?? There is so much emphasis given to Chinese. :?

Not really, Chinese is easy to learn if the child has the passion in it. Most important is to built their passion while they are young by exposing them to lots of chinese reading books, fun words and chengyu stories, to build a strong foundation.

I absolutely agree with Vinarc.

In fact, my parents could not teach me Chinese when I was young, and they never read any Chinese books to me. But they allowed me to take a bus to the national library every week, and I loved to read Chinese story books.
I scored high marks in Chinese all the way to A levels, and I never had any Chinese tuition, and never did any assessment books. I spent the least time studying Chinese textbooks. But I spend all my free time reading fantastic Chinese books purely for enjoyment.

I found English very difficult to learn when I was in school. Mostly because I did not know phonics, and I could not read well. So that is why I put in effort to teach my kids English first. Then I realized that if we use the correct methods, learning English could be very easy too.

The problem with Chinese is that most parents do not know what is the correct way of teaching Chinese. They thought that they should make kids practice writing as many Chinese characters as possible since a very young age. This is a big mistake. Most kids will end up hating Chinese (except for a few very rare ones who like to write Chinese). The correct method should be to focus on character recognition before 6 years old.

The other mistake is to teach hanyu pinyin before the child even starts to learn Chinese. English educated parents do not believe that their kids can learn Chinese without hanyu pinyin, which is very wrong. Most kids before 6 years old have a very good ability to remember Chinese characters as pictures, there is no need to use hanyu pinyin at all. In fact, if parents teach the child hanyu pinyin first, he may reject reading Chinese.

[Wan]

While mummies here are discussing how to teach children 认字w/o hypy, MOE change policy again. Will affect my son who go P1 next year

http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Edvantage/Story/A1Story20110118-258975.html
the part on getting more teachers & making Chinese learning more interesting is most welcomed. But that part on using computer to answer exam questions mean there is no need to learn 笔画anymore! As long as u know how to type hypy or scribble the word pictorially, whether the little 撇or捺comes b4 the 横is no longer impt. Mummy here is getting a cultural shock. I always feel these are the little things that make Chinese character beautiful. Sigh...

[phankao]

tamarind:

phankao:

DangDang.com have these types of books or not?

dangdang.com has tons and tons of pictures books, without hanyu pinyin. The books listed in my blog for ages 2 to 6 are picture books without hanyu pinyin (all except 2 books) from my home library:

http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-to-raise-bilingual-child.html

Each book costs $3+ on average including shipping to Singapore. There are thousands more titles in dangdang. Those that I listed are excellent books that kids will love. Although the books are for young kids, the words are challenging for adults in Singapore.

The books are not always very big, but not very small either. I would say the size is medium. Chinese parents do not think that very young kids should read books with huge words, and probably that is why their kids can read long novels with small words by 7 or 8 years old. I think they are right.

The issue for a 1year old reader, is not only the size of the words. It is also because they emphasize the picture more than the words. You yourself already described the books as \"Picture Books\". That is distracting to a very young reader. Words should be larger than the pictures, and preferably on separate pages without the distraction of the pictures. That's why I like the books that I posted up there. Some of the books, I make myself based on day-to-day experiences. Lots of words too, by the time it comes to the more difficult levels. But expensive lah.

[tamarind]

phankao:

The issue for a 1year old reader, is not only the size of the words. It is also because they emphasize the picture more than the words. You yourself already described the books as \"Picture Books\". That is distracting to a very young reader. Words should be larger than the pictures, and preferably on separate pages without the distraction of the pictures. That's why I like the books that I posted up there. Some of the books, I make myself based on day-to-day experiences. Lots of words too, by the time it comes to the more difficult levels. But expensive lah.

I don't agree with you that words must be bigger than pictures. It is very important for young kids to look at pictures for as long as they want, while they read. Pictures help kids to understand what they are reading. Otherwise kids may know many words but don't understand the meaning, or how to use them.

The books in my blog are all best selling books and well loved by many young kids in China, I believe that mainland China parents know better than us when it comes to teaching Chinese to their kids.

[tamarind]

Wan:

While mummies here are discussing how to teach children 认字w/o hypy, MOE change policy again. Will affect my son who go P1 next year

http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Edvantage/Story/A1Story20110118-258975.html
the part on getting more teachers & making Chinese learning more interesting is most welcomed. But that part on using computer to answer exam questions mean there is no need to learn 笔画anymore! As long as u know how to type hypy or scribble the word pictorially, whether the little 撇or捺comes b4 the 横is no longer impt. Mummy here is getting a cultural shock. I always feel these are the little things that make Chinese character beautiful. Sigh...

Actually I think that it is OK to type hanyu pinyin and pick the words. The fact is that people in China are mostly using computers to write Chinese documents now. In fact, I read that 50% of the content in the internet in the whole word, is in Chinese, and of course this is all entered using the computer.

In fact, earlier in this thread, I advised parents to let your kids enter into the computer when writing Chinese compositions, this is a good way of motivating them to write.

I have always advised parents not to force kids to practice writing Chinese words. Character recognition should be priority, followed by speaking. Learning 笔画 should be least important.

The fact is that when you write in Chinese, no one can tell whether you write this stroke first or that stroke first. I don't really remember the exact sequence of writing 笔画, but I always scored high marks for Chinese all the way to A levels, and I wrote some of the best essays in school. Most parents are making a mistake forcing kids to memorize the sequence, it is quite useless to do so. I am not saying that we should ignore it totally, but it should be put at the lowest priority.

MOE is going in the right direction to focus on the practicality of Chinese. Learning the sequence of 笔画 is not practical. The fact is that when we write composition, so long as all the strokes are in the correct place, no one can tell whether the stroke is correct or not.

[hquek]

Typing hypy into computer is ok, but I find it’s very slow - and my hypy is strong. Plus time is needed to look at the selections and then make choice.


I feel it’ll definitely slow down the speed. Either the child has to practise more typing on computer, or else I wonder how he/she can finish the paper (not sure how much typing is involved).

But of course, kids may consider it a boon since they don’t need to know how to write so many words. just beware the hidden traps.

[toddles]

phankao:

tamarind:

[quote=\"phankao\"]
I have used alot of correction tape just to make sure the books that \"baby\"(our now 2yo) reads has no hypy. haha. People think I *siao*.

You are not siao lah. I thought of doing the same thing too.

Aiyah, i only do for the \"baby\" books. Like these, I use correction tape:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2619/3957682646_6f60f81a00_m.jpg\">

For some books, I even printed the words out LARGER and pasted it onto the original lines to cover both the small words and the HYPY.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2723/4049475097_fc0d4f786c_m.jpg\">

Like so \"wu liao\". Too bad that the number of books with big big clear words like these, suitable for reading toddlers are so few.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3479/3915650258_894cecd10e_m.jpg\"> http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2601/3982874259_4dd31062e9_m.jpg\">

Usually it's more of the case of pictures very big and words so small!
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1175/5122408519_2965bcc283_m.jpg\">

Anyway, those books above were the ones my son read when he was 1+year old. I must say that I've learnt alot Chinese myself with him.

Actually I like these types of books for toddlers or beginning readers the best - big words set apart from the illustrations/pictures. Not cheap though!!!!!! DangDang.com have these types of books or not? These, I also used \"correction tape\". HAHAH!
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5164/5366876162_73b378d739_m.jpg\"> http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5245/5366262977_77a0118569_m.jpg\">
.[/quote]I think you've done the right thing! I think in our time, in Pri school, the textbooks didn't come with hypy right? I see hypy as a crutch. And if parents can read, they should guide their kids using books without hypy as far as possible. I have a friend who REALLY cannot do chinese, so she needs hypy books to read to her toddler. Otherwise very jialat, prob every word gotta check dictionary.

I think in sec sch we had hypy and I used to cover them with the opaque part of the ruler so i trained myself better.

Quite amazing - you have 3 (or 4?) kids and still put in the time and effort to teach them mandarin yourself.