Teaching Chinese at Home

[hui siang]

Hi Tamarind,


Any more good books to recommend before I make my order from dang dang. Many thanks !

[numericrhapsodies]

hello all.

I personally think the best way to teach your child Chinese at home is to surround him or her with Chinese influences.
I come from a English-speaking family, and disliked Chinese when I was younger, due to the americanized environment i grew up in.
Everything around me was Caucasian, from the brands I used, to the television I watched.
I was influenced by the american entertainment virtues of money, materialism, and looks.
I was very foolish back then, and when I look back on it I feel ashamed of myself.
Sadly, many children, even those around my age, do not realize the beauty, the grace, and the quirks of the Chinese language.
They are under the delusion of white supremacy, that anything that is foreign and out of Asia is good, and that the Chinese language is all rough and uncouth.
That is why children today have lost sight of the traditional Chinese values.
In order to reinstate, or instill for that matter, a sense of interest in the Chinese language, the child needs to be interested in the culture.
I was weak in Chinese in my P1 to P2 years. At P3, I saw that my grades were slipping from A to B, and I decided had to do something.
No, I didn’t go crazy and sign myself up for Chinese tuition seven days of the week.
I’ll admit, i’m the laziest person you’ll find, in fact, I spent my precious PSLE studying time reading manga and watching the telly!
So i thought of the best way for myself. Watching TV.
My Chinese has been exceptionally good ever since. I further expanded my exposure to Chinese culture by reading Chinese novels (the reallyyyy old type), and conversing with my grandparents in Chinese.
This wasn’t enough to satiate my appetite and hunger, so i requested my parents bring me to China for our annual year-end holiday.
In the twelve years of my life, I have gone to China 7 times, and I am proud to say that my Chinese is very proficient.
Or maybe its just because I have a weird Chinese accent when I speak Chinese that makes people think I come from Beijing.
cheers,
numericrhapsodies.

[toddles]

numericrhapsodies:

I was weak in Chinese in my P1 to P2 years. At P3, I saw that my grades were slipping from A to B, and I decided had to do something.

cheers,
numericrhapsodies.

wow, to get such peripeteia so early in life is rare indeed! what a blessing.

[SumBoh]

Hi all KS parents,


FYT : I saw quite a no. of level 2-3 Ji Chu Han Zi 500 at Bishan popular last night.

[hquek]

numericrhapsodies:

So i thought of the best way for myself. Watching TV.

My Chinese has been exceptionally good ever since. I further expanded my exposure to Chinese culture by reading Chinese novels (the reallyyyy old type), and conversing with my grandparents in Chinese.

Wow, very self-motivated you are. That's wonderful. I do agree, my spoken chinese is good (used to get good comments from pp on my enounciation) but written is alas not good at all - this I attribute to watching a lot of channel 8 shows when I was young, but not reading chinese books.

Then again, I don't advocate TCS shows anymore. Every 2 days, there will be something violent or with physical intimacy connotation etc on tv. My kids are now scared of clowns after one of the shows depicting a clown kidnapping children - good for me, but I do take in mind what else they absorb thanks to the telly.

[GSK]

Hi All


Anyone has Ji Chu Han Zi 500 to sell? Please let me know.

Thanks.
SK

[tamarind]

pummanuel:

If 《笑猫日记》is the 'in' storybook for Chinese primary school children in the 21st century, I would like to recommend the highly popular storybook for Chinese primary school children in the last century - 《阿凡提》(Afanti). My husband and I both read 《阿凡提》when we were young as our own parents were 阿凡提's ardent fans when they were young. Hence, I always feel that 《阿凡提》is an evergreen.


Till today, 阿凡提's nationality remains hotly contested (Uighur, Turk, Uzbek or Iraqi) and it remains unknown whether he’s a real or fictitious person. The only agreed upon facts are the stories are set in the 12-13th century and 阿凡提 is Turkic speaking.

The name 阿凡提 means 先生 as he’s highly regarded in the community. He travels around on a donkey, donning traditional Arab clothes and a turban. Wherever he goes, he will help the poor peasants who are oppressed by the rich landlords or autocrats. The stories are simple but the unexpected twists and 阿凡提's ingeniousness made the reader asking for more.

I thought 阿凡提 will be suitable for bedtime reading for younger children and perhaps independent reading for upper primary school children. It seems that Dangdang has various editions ranging from wordy ones to comics, so parents can choose based on their children's preferences.

I’m not sure if 《阿凡提》 will appeal to 21st century children but I read from Dangdang that 《阿凡提》is one of the Ministry of Education's recommended reading for primary school children in China and one particular edition also won 冰心儿童文学奖.

When my daughter is older, I’m going to pass her the edition I read when I was a child (if I can still find it at my parents' home). She will be the 3rd generation to read 《阿凡提》.

pummanuel,
Thanks for recommending 阿凡提. I will definitely order it

[tamarind]

hui siang:

Hi Tamarind,


Any more good books to recommend before I make my order from dang dang. Many thanks !

Hi hui siang,
Have you seen the list of books in my blog ?
http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-to-raise-bilingual-child.html

[tamarind]

hquek:

Then again, I don't advocate TCS shows anymore. Every 2 days, there will be something violent or with physical intimacy connotation etc on tv. My kids are now scared of clowns after one of the shows depicting a clown kidnapping children - good for me, but I do take in mind what else they absorb thanks to the telly.

hquek,
I totally agree with you. TCS shows are really horrible. There were articles in the newspapers complaining why there are rape scenes in every series.

[tamarind]

numericrhapsodies:

hello all.

I personally think the best way to teach your child Chinese at home is to surround him or her with Chinese influences.
I come from a English-speaking family, and disliked Chinese when I was younger, due to the americanized environment i grew up in.
Everything around me was Caucasian, from the brands I used, to the television I watched.
I was influenced by the american entertainment virtues of money, materialism, and looks.
I was very foolish back then, and when I look back on it I feel ashamed of myself.
Sadly, many children, even those around my age, do not realize the beauty, the grace, and the quirks of the Chinese language.
They are under the delusion of white supremacy, that anything that is foreign and out of Asia is good, and that the Chinese language is all rough and uncouth.
That is why children today have lost sight of the traditional Chinese values.
In order to reinstate, or instill for that matter, a sense of interest in the Chinese language, the child needs to be interested in the culture.
I was weak in Chinese in my P1 to P2 years. At P3, I saw that my grades were slipping from A to B, and I decided had to do something.
No, I didn't go crazy and sign myself up for Chinese tuition seven days of the week.
I'll admit, i'm the laziest person you'll find, in fact, I spent my precious PSLE studying time reading manga and watching the telly!
So i thought of the best way for myself. Watching TV.
My Chinese has been exceptionally good ever since. I further expanded my exposure to Chinese culture by reading Chinese novels (the reallyyyy old type), and conversing with my grandparents in Chinese.
This wasn't enough to satiate my appetite and hunger, so i requested my parents bring me to China for our annual year-end holiday.
In the twelve years of my life, I have gone to China 7 times, and I am proud to say that my Chinese is very proficient.
Or maybe its just because I have a weird Chinese accent when I speak Chinese that makes people think I come from Beijing.
cheers,
numericrhapsodies.

numericrhapsodies,
Thank you so much for sharing.

My parents also could not help me with Chinese when I was young. They never read any Chinese books to me, and we spoke only Cantonese at home. However, they allowed me to take a bus to the National Library once every week since I was 7 years old, and I read as many Chinese story books as I could. I wrote Chinese compositions effortlessly since P2, and I often scored the highest marks in Chinese while I was in RGS and RJC. This is not because I am naturally good in languages. I used to find English very difficult and I could only read long English novels only after 18 years old.

That is why I always think that it is not true that kids from English speaking families are not capable of doing well in Chinese.