Teaching Chinese

Date:  Feb 10, 2014

When you teach your kid, it is not necessary to teach them according to MOE curriculum.  

Yes, MOE curriculum is important, but it is also important to make sure that your kid can learn and fell in love with it.

What is the use that you “force” the knowledge into the kid while he cannot even catch up in the enrichment class.  

That is why I took away “Berries” (百力果) class from Jay as I found that it is too stressful for Jay as he was severely falling behind the class.

Instead, I have a tutor to teach him 1 to 1 for 1.5 hour per week.  She (the tutor) will make sure Jay follows the MOE curriculum and so on.

As for me, I continue to use my own method (which I think it is best for Jay Jay) to teach him what the class room does not teach.

For example, I still insist on the Chinese Calligraphy.  And Jay Jay now learns new words thru Chinese Calligraphy.  Which I think it is very useful.  

When he grew up, he will be equipped with these “Chinese Qualities” that the school does not teach.

Recently, I found a series of books that I really like.  

Haha… Now, how do I make sure Jay will like it?  I am sure he will love it.

In order to “rebuild” Jay Jay’s confidence in Chinese, I found these few sets of books useful.

This first 100 words has 8 books.

By reading these 8 books, Jay Jay will be know by hard 100 Chinese words.

The author is a Malaysian teacher.  

And these books I think only available in Malaysia.

The publisher is Odonata Publishing Sdn. Bhd.  A Malaysian publisher.

Surprise!  I found this from Popular Bookstores in Malaysia.  

And each book is RM5.50.

I have not seen these books in Singapore Popular.  So, if you want to get it, you need to get it from Popular bookstore in Malaysia.

The first series is to teach the first 103 words.

So, each books will teach about 10-11 new words.

All the new words will be listed in front page.  So that you get to preview what you need to learn in each book.

For beginner series, the words are lesser.  So, you can easily read the sentence with no problem.

Whenever there are new words to learn, it will be listed below.  Together with the Han Yu Pin Yin, as well as the order of strokes to write the Chinese word.

As you flip thru the pages.  More words will be on a single page.

So, from time to time, I will let Jay Jay read all the 8 books so that he can be familiarise with the Chinese Words.

The first series, there are 8 books.  Each newer book will incorporate the words you learned from the previous books.  So that your vocabulary will increase and thru repetition, you get to revise those words you learned from the past book.

The other thing that I am teaching Jay is to read it aloud.

So that Jay Jay learns how to read it with “tones”.  This is important in oral test for future.

Then, I ask him to try to write down the words in Chinese Calligraphy. So that he can learn how to write sentences.  

He felt very proud of himself that he can read all these books.  So out of 103 words, he has only 3 words that he is not familiar.

For kids, it is very important to build that confidence in their mind.  Once they are confident and the next thing you know the ability of learning enhanced too.

That is the formula to teach kids.  Teach them by confidence.

Now, I am teaching him the next series which is 200 words series.  It comes with 8 books too.

Soon or later, he is going to learn all these words.  So, I am not worry that I am teaching him in advance.  

The reason is the pace of these books is just right for kids.  And I found that the kids become confident after reading all these story books.

Again, they will learn new words in each books.

As you can see, there are more sentences and more words in each page.  Slowly training the kids to read is a key goal of mine.

Making them confidence in reading is the main goal.

The next series is 300 words.  Then, follow by 400 words.  As you can see, there are only 4 books for 300 words and 3 books for 400 words.

That is because each book, you need to learn more words when it goes deeper.

Again more words in there in each page.

The 500, 600 and 700 words series.  Each series got 2 books.

By the time they reach here, hopefully they already develop a reading habit and hopefully there are confident enough to read.

800 and 900 series.  I did not buy the 1000 and 1100 words series.

Next time it will be very shiok to see them read the book by themselves.