Anya and Her ‘Learning Chinese’ Progress
Anya is now 6 years old, she’s in K2 (Kindergarten) and she’ll be in Primary School next year.
AND, she already has weekly ‘chinese character writing’ tests!
[Btw, I’m TOTALLY clueless about this. Yes, I help her review the characters before the day of the test, but I hopelessly have NO idea what they mean, unless Anya tells me what they are. She would tell me what the characters mean and I’d write ‘how I should say them’ above each character *hehe*]
Anyway.
I can see she’s doing well with writing and memorising chinese words / rhymes / songs, BUT she’s not that keen on expressing what she thinks or feels IN Chinese!
[The fact that both Wilson and I can’t speak Chinese also doesn’t quite help the situation]
[Anya and her Chinese Rhymes. Click HERE to watch the video clip on youtube]
…
And now I wonder:
– If you have kids in Kindergarten here in Singapore, do they have Chinese (and English) tests every week too?
– Do you speak Chinese at home?
– How’s your kids’ overall response / attitude towards learning Chinese so far?
I hope to hear your views and stories!
…
PS: Personally, I still think Singapore’s academic expectations on kids are on the ‘too high ‘side. At such an age, I’d love for them to enjoy more ‘play’ and less ‘academic pressure’.
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hi leonny
we rely a lot on the school to start j speaking mandarin as our home envt is mostly english-speaking. fortunately as language is one of her stronger areas, she’s picked it up fairly well. of course once she’s able to comprehend the language, i made a very conscientious effort to converse with her the language. this helped tremendously as she probably found it more relevant and applicable since mama now speaks the language with her 🙂
It’s true – expectations on children in schools in SG is “too high” – which is why we like it here – they don’t load the child with too much – instead they focus 1st on social skills, learning skills & then comes the academic stuff… our problem here is keeping up with the chinese (there was a small chinese class but now is closed due to lack of students)… Tobias understands quite well in chinese but won’t speak it unless he has to… as long as he comes to understand it eventually we will be happy with that… he has other languages to cope with here 😉
Hilary:
Yes yes … exposure plays a huge part, doesn’t it?
If you ask me, I’d rather have ‘your situation’ … compared to scoring A in chinese but can’t speak the language well *smile*
zxiasss :
Hi there … thanks for sharing your stories.
Yeah .. it’s true how one child’s interest in something may not be another child’s interest. Our approach may need to be different to when dealing with different children.
Mona:
Thanks heaps for sharing.
I totally agree with you that our response towards the language (or anything that the kids are exposed to) will also determine their response towards the language.
And oh, it’s nice to hear that you’re teaching the kids dialect too! If I could speak in other languages other than English and Indonesian, I’d surely expose the kids too! 🙂 The more language one knows, the broader worldview and exposure one will have later!
Siska:
Wah lu dulu belajar mandarin lama juga ya? Akhirnya useful juga deh sampe sekarang (walaupun dulunya terpaksa dan sekarang pun ga sering2 di pake yah disono).
Memang, kalo language itu perlu byk practice deh .. kl ngga pasti kagok kalo ngomong. Utk gw sih, lebih perlu bisa ngomong chinese daripada bisa nulis and baca (in terms of ‘priority’), tapi ya how leh … ema bapanya ga bisa ginih …
Lu dikit2 expose chinese juga ke JL and JH gak? sayang juga kalo lu ga pass ‘ilmu’ lu ke mereka 🙂
Florence:
I guess when these little ones are exposed to a positive environment where chinese speaking and learning chinese is a ‘good’ thing, they’ll automatically pick up similar ‘feeling’ towards the languange too …? 🙂
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Klessis!
Thanks for sharing …
Your situation is very similar to mine, except that mine is Indonesian! 🙂 If we could speak Chinese as well, we’ll definitely expose them to the language as well every day.
Kids are really like a sponge …. once they start school, they’ll definitely be able to speak english 😀
(Vai, who’s in N2, can speak english relatively well now. He got got it mixed up in english and indonesian in his first weeks of school though hehe… And till now, both my kids speak in Indonesian while they’re with us)
Ruth:
Yeah .. it’s sad how more and more people (younger generation) see chinese (or whatever their mother tongue is) as ‘uncool’.
I think it’ll be great if you start speaking in chinese to your friend’s kids 🙂 I personally would LOVE it if I have friends who can speak to my kids in Chinese 🙂
Nic:
Thanks 🙂
And hey, if you hadn’t told me that her writing is neat and all that, I wouldn’t have known! Lack of knowledge leads to my lack of appreciation … or should I say, the ‘ability’ to appreciate 🙂
Anya (and Vai!) knows much more chinese than me, for sure! haha
Oh my goodness, chinese spelling tests brings back some memories! It’s funny you mentioned the pressure on students to do well academically, because I have seldom gotten anything above a C for chinese in school but I speak it fluently because most of my family members speak chinese only. There’s nothing like learning a language from passionate aunties at the market!
my eldest is 5yrs old. i dun quite like the idea of little children doing spelling. be it english or chinese… but writting is important. esp chinese. it helps to build up the voca. i try to ask my eldest to write the characters. those that she learnt in school. in a way, she recog and remember the characters. much better than spelling’s way of remembering the words or characters. English – phonics. she can spell thro phonics… at least it wil not kill their interest in language.
but dun apply to my son (4yrs old)….
As parents, we will try to do whatever best we can to make sure that the kids keep up in school but remain happy.
One of the things my hubby and I totally aligned was to speak to the kids in Mandarin and dialect (hokkien) from their birth. We felt that English would come naturally when they start official schooling.
When they were in N1 to K1, the kids went through different obstacles.
My son who is seem to be less incline to language, had problem communicating to friends and teachers. Although he could catch up on his written work like the rest of the kids, he expressed difficulty in understanding his fellow friends. However, this problem ceased in P1.
My girl however, has totally no issue picking up being bilingual. She was able to communicate well in English in school since EVERYONE speaks English and Mandrin at home. She even teaches my father-in-law English. LOL.
Fast forward – my son did his PSLE last yr. He is strong in Math and Science but he did equally well in English and Chinese. By P6, it’s the technicalities of expressing in Composition, deeper comprehending the meaningful phases and passages. I had to provide some extra coaching for BOTH English and Chinese in P6 as this is a major milestone in primary schooling. Interest plays a larger part. His English scored A* whilst Chinese A. He kinda detest Chinese in P4 to P6 as he enjoys English more than Chinese. Although we still inculcate more Chinese culture in them (learning chinese instruments etc).
We chose HCI for his secondary schooling and after term 1, he says that Chinese is actually alot of interesting part to it. I reckon friends has alot to do with that.
My girl @ P4 is protesting against Math but the rest of the subjects are still ok 🙂 Totally different problem now.
sorry for being lengthy but I feel that there is really no hard and fast rule bcos all kids respond different even under the same environment. Oh, we also become interested in the subject, it helps the kids in learning. Ultimately, it’s not abt the results. It’s the learning path that is important.
cheers 🙂
well done, Anya!!!! that’s very neat writing.
gw dulu sih jg dipaksa les mandarin sama nyokap. klu engga, jg ga bisa baca/tulis/ngomong mandarin. dulu yah les sampe SMA kls 3 lah, stlh itu kesini, udah ga les lagi. uda byk sekali yg lupa.
bakal lbh gampang klu di rmh ngomong sih. tp klu engga, yah gpp jg. utk dikte spt tes anya di atas kaga ngefek byk. cm klu misalnya ada tes percakapan, itu mgkn anya bakal ga begitu comfortable utk ngomong dlm mandarin. krn dulu gw gitu. pas tes dikte, buat kalimat dll, gw msh bisa. tp begitu tanya jawab, udah kagok.
tp spt layaknya semua bahasa, klu byk dipake, yah pasti akan lebih luwes ngomongnya. gw secara percakapan (mandarin) lbh luwes pas disini krn byk org yg dr sgp/m’sia yg ngomong mandarin. tp secara tulisan, jadi lbh parah krn jarang dipake lagi.
Hi Leonny , My son is in K1 and he has english spelling (6 words) on one week and Chinese (6 words) on another week. 🙂
My daughter (N1) used to ans me in english when we speak to her in chinese but now after she join berries world , she start to ans in chinese. she can also read chinese san zi jing. :p
Keith and hazel love the lanuage now! 🙂 hehe
Hey Leonny, not sure about the weekly tests now, cos my kid’s only in N2 this year… but I think speaking Mandarin to my daughter at home helped her alot. Because we speak so much Mandarin at home, there was a period of time I was worried that she would lose out to her schoolmates whose primary communication language was English (kiasu mama syndrome!Haha!), but it turned out absolutely differently. Her school gave her proper phonics and English lessons, while we speak to her in Mandarin at home, so she’s now effectively bilingual. =)
My friends whose kids are in Primary School tell me that their kids have chinese ‘spelling’ in school, and they are supposed to spell out the hanyu pinyin of the chinese words instead of writing the chinese characters! I thought that’s really weird!
Haha, I speak Chinese at home with my mum and English with my dad 😀
Although I have no children (not even married yet :D), I would say that generally now, not many kids like Chinese and a lot of them find it a burden or un-cool to learn Chinese and I really think that it’s pretty sad.
I myself love Chinese and will be reading Chinese in university.
I always visit a friend and her kids (similar age to Vai and Anya, her daughter’s 5 and her son’s 3) and I feel like I should start speaking to them in Mandarin, cause really there isn’t any Chinese influence/factor in their lives. Even now at the age of 3, my friend’s son is quite resistant to Mandarin, he doesn’t answer me when I speak to him in Chinese. Sighs 🙁
On a side note, it’s really good for Anya to be able to learn three languages, Bahasa, English and Chinese. It’ll do her good 🙂 And yes, I so agree with you on the academic pressures, it can get pretty stressful
Nice writing! Very neat! And she rhymes wth good pronounciation and enunciation…you can learn Chinese from her now hahaha 😉