Comparing Chinese Enrichment (Primary/Preschool)
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Hi
Reputable Chinese enrichment centres are TienHsia (uses sch textbook to teach, advance teaching), Han Language, Hua Language and EduPlus, besides Berris.
Your concern is getting a suitable teacher. Have a talk with the teacher first before enrolling. I believe all centres are the same (ie sit down approach). -
I heard Tien Hsia is very academic and has chinese spelling every week. Is it true? I am already having a hard time teaching him his weekly school chinese spelling and would not want another stress.
Chose Berries because it is more “fun” and not so academic knowing my son cannot take it. My son has many teachers over his 1.5 years in Berries, and most of them will have the same comment about him. Only his school chinese teacher in the 2nd term can manage him.
What about Han Language and EduPlus? Are their curriculum same as Tien Hsia or more similar to Berries? You know of any good teachers in any of the schools? -
Berries teaches Higher Chinese, and my active son understands but dun recognise the chinese characters most of the time. He finds it very demoralising. Maybe his foundation is not well established.
Is it the same for Tien Hsia, Hua Language and Eduplus? -
Hi coffee,
It is unfortunate that you did not encounter suitable teachers at Berries at your area. My K2 boy is with berries (West area) since start of K1 and the main teacher (there are 2 per class) remain the same throughout K1 up until now.
Do you do reinforcements at home? I find that that is the key to retaining what has been taught in class. -
jedamum:
Nope. But I remember lizawa recommending it in another thread.Chief,
Have you come across this centre?
http://www.busybees.com.sg/ -
Hi coffee
TienHsia is academic. Yes, they have weekly tingxie. It is not suitable for active people. Check out Eduplus on how they run their programmes. Han, Hua are also academic. -
Hi jedamum
My son likes me to read bedtime stories to him, so I read Chinese story books to him. My in-laws speak to him in mandarin. Is it sufficient? Any suggestions on other forms of reinforcement?
Hi caroline3sg,
Thanks for your suggestion. I will check out EduPlus. Only inconvenience I thought is the distance as the nearest branch is at Bishan. -
coffee:
Hi coffee,Hi jedamum
My son likes me to read bedtime stories to him, so I read Chinese story books to him. My in-laws speak to him in mandarin. Is it sufficient? Any suggestions on other forms of reinforcement?
I only read to my boy for leisure, cos he told me that he usually don't pay attention to the details of the story...cos he just want to enjoy my voice.
Reinforcement i meant revising what has been taught in berries class.
Previously when a month into berries and that I realised that my boy is still not able to read the 'small book', i decided to revised with him twice a week. I will go through the notes that the teacher distributed in class (asking him to read and i correct him etc) as well as the 'small book'. For words that he is not familiar and that I think is 'frequency words', we collate and print into a sheet of words and then reinforce with him everyday until he is familiar with them. We will replace the sheet as and when he is ready to move on to the next sheet. Those 'passed' sheet we filed it and then revised with him once in a while.
Nowadays as the emphasis is on HYPY in class and that he is better at word recognition, i only asked him to do his reading of the small book (any small book from K1 up until now) at alternate nights and go through with him the words that he had forgotten the following night until he remembered them. -
I sent my girl to Eduplus. Actually that was the first chinese enrichment school I know. Was only subsequently I found out about so many others like Berries, Tien Hsia, Hua and Han. The rates are about the same. Except that Eduplus is always term of 16 lessons. Each year is 3 terms. I find they are too bad too but very little coverage about them in this forum. Thats why I am curious to find out how others are since I hear so many good things about tien hsia and berries.
I am sending my second child to Eduplus so that she can attend the full course unlike my first one who cannot finish and had to attend crash course for hanyu pinyin now.
Anyone has attended Eduplus and others ? any comments on Eduplus -
Hi gelfish,
Eduplus is not bad. Especially the one-minute speech that they make the kids do. This really helps to build up their confidence. Especially helpful for oral exams. But, I don’t think they really do a lot of drilling. Their worksheets are also manageable, not too difficult. Good thing about them is that they cover all aspects, including compo writing. My children will not be able to sit through classes with only creative writing, so I thought this will be something they may find interesting. I like the teachers at Eduplus. So far, no complains about Eduplus from my kids.
I just wonder why they charge material fees every term. They should have just incorporated everything into the school fees.