“What can I do to help my kids improve Chinese?”
Friends and followers always ask me how to improve Chinese. Er… Even though my Mandarin is good, teaching is another thing. I also struggle a lot with teaching my kids Chinese. So to save my headache, and prevent myself from getting wrinkles early. It took me some time to find out 5 effective ways to improve Chinese for my kids.
5 Ways To Help My Kids Improve Chinese
1. Tuition & Enrichment Class
I signed up for Chinese Speech and Drama and Chinese Creative Writing for the girls at Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan. The reason I choose Speech and drama is the role play, storytelling, singing and language games. Most people hate Chinese because it’s difficult but through play and games, it can help them to boost their confidence level and develop a strong interest in the Chinese language.
Asking kids to create a story isn’t difficult, but asking them to pen their thoughts down in Chinese, will be a tough one. Plus, they will teach them the correct writing techniques, and the thinking process to help them generate more ideas and express their thoughts clearly.
This one I can see a huge improvement in my eldest composition.
A video clip on Xin He SHHK June Holiday class.
As for tuition, I sent both to HCL (Happy Chinese Learning). Actually was trying to find one near my place but the waiting list is long. I read online reviews that HCL is pretty good also and there are a few in North East area. Good thing is, you can choose to focus on comprehension/oral or composition. Since the girls are learning creative writing, I opt for comprehension.
They use a reward system in their teaching which really encourages the kids to be active in class by asking or answering questions. Their worksheets are good but I don’t look forward to their spelling.
2. Yaodao Reading Pen
This is my SUPER LIFE SAVER! How can I not buy this earlier? This is a pen that read any book! English, Chinese and even Spanish (Ok I don’t really need that). This saves me from all the calling. The girls can keep on calling me and asking me to repeat again and again. The history function of the pen allows the girls to refer back to the words they have scanned before.
The pen also encourages them to read Chinese books since they are so keen to scan and it will read out loud to them.
What I like
– the history function, so they can refer back again
– the Han yu pin yin function. Very useful for my eldest, she will write down the HYPY so she can learn again.
– reading out loud function. The old-school dictionary doesn’t really pronounce the words, so by reading out loud, kids can learn the exact pronunciation.
– Besides the Chinese meaning, they also have explanations in English.
You can get it from Shopee with a direct distributor with warranty!
Reading Chinese Book
I know it’s tough but unfortunately, that is one of the ways to improve their Chinese. That’s how I improve my Chinese, by reading all the detective novels (e.g. 倪匡-衛斯理系列). It’s not easy to get kids to read, I have to force my kids to take at least 1 Chinese storybook for every 3 English books they borrow from Library. Honestly, I think Library should give extra book bug cards to kids who borrow Chinese books.
But, the Smart Yaodao pen, really makes my life a lot easier, because when the kids can’t read, they can use the pen to help them.
Singing Chinese Song
Kids in their pre-teenage love music, especially what is trending now. All the popular songs from Tik Tok and YouTube. This helps them to recognize words faster because they need to sing along!
Watching Chinese Movie
Every Friday and Saturday is our Weekend Movie night. With so many choices like Netflix and Disney+ (you can sign up through Shopback to earn cashback), they provide a wide variety of Chinese shows for the whole family. This can train the way they talk and how to use Mandarin appropriately.
In recent years, China has improved their animation and quality of production, you can find a good selection of movies for kids example Over the Moon.
Conclusion
Language is something that we have to read, listen and practice more in order to improve. The most important is to get kids interested in Chinese, so they can learn and use it. Once they get the hang of it, they will improve their Chinese and know how to use it beautifully and love this 3500 years of written history!
Featured image credit to SHHK.
You can also see my IGS Highlights for more!
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