Chinese Tones dumplings or sleep? This sounds like a funny question. But, in Chinese, it is a fun sentence to practice the tones. Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language. There are 4 tones plus a light tone. There are many languages, some call them dialects, in China. They all have tones. Mandarin Chinese is the official language in China and Taiwan. When you visit Canton province in China you will hear people speak Cantonese and Mandarin. If
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“I hear Chinese! I was so excited and I told my mom that I heard two people stand in front of the store were speaking Chinese.” When I heard this I was just as excited as the student who was telling me the story. Her voice was filled with joy and smile. It is always wonderful to see the enthusiasm in children when they are learning. We need to keep that enthusiasm. Learning is exciting. You want
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The kids in my kindergarten class were doing a Chinese word hunt game. “I know this! These are Chinese words,” Maya said. The boy next to her said, “I know. They look different.” “I see Chinese words,” Leo jumped in the conversation. After the class, John in the class came to me and told me that he wanted to show me some Chinese words he had found at home next time. I was delighted to hear that.
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“Yīn cái shī jiào 因材施教” is a Chinese saying from Confucius and I share it as “personalized teaching” in English. Listen to your child and observe what she does. Add the teaching to what she is working on. Cater the learning toward her interest. Homeschool parents often do this. But, you don’t need to be a homeschool parent to apply personalized teaching at home. Because you already have been doing it. It is before your child starts
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Everyday Chinese: Are you sleepy? A daily routine is important for children. These expressions are for everyday use. What is the simple bed time routine for your child? I remember that my kids enjoyed the bed time stories but they were never ready to go to bed even when they were very tired. For my preschool students, some of them were never ready for nap time. Are you sleepy? It’s time to go to bed? Are you
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Story time! When my kids were little we enjoyed story time in the library. We also had our own story time at home, Chinese Story Time. We continue the story time until now even though they are teens. Sometimes I read to them and sometimes they read to me. It has become a time to read and to exchange ideas. At times, we are just making up stories with things the kids see during the day. This
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Raising a bilingual child starts with a learning environment. But there are challenges like, “I want to raise a bilingual child but there is not a target language environment.” “There are hardly any people speaking Mandarin Chinese in my neighborhood.” “What can I do to help my child learn Mandarin as a non-native speaker?” There are also ways to face the challenges and make it work. My kids recently went to a Board Game Cafe in Taipei
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Everyday Chinese: I am happy! Feelings and emotion expressions are high-frequency words for every day. Are you happy? Are you sad? Teaching kids about feeling words so they can use them when there is a need. Children enjoy acting. Simon Says is a game you can play with this topic. There are many activities you can incorporate to practice the feeling words. “Do you see a happy face?” I ask the students. “Look around you and count
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Play and learn. When you see your child getting excited about something she wants to learn more. Have you seen a young child telling you the information she knows about dinosaurs, rainforest, butterflies, making cookies, or how to recycle? Is it amazing? How does she know all that? She learns all that because it is so much fun. Learning is like playing to her. Play and learn. Do it every day with your child. Children are like
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My kids attended a calligraphy class recently. Before we headed to the studio they asked me if I was going to paint. “Yes!” I told them. To be honest, I was quite excited about it. I was looking forward to being a part of their experience. They have done this a few years ago when they were little. And, I remember I painted a really funny pig with a Chinese brush. Miss Lee is a fantastic art
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