Learning Chinese

Date:  Oct 26, 2014

I think there are something wrong somewhere.  I don’t know where.

Yesterday, I pick up Jay’s Chinese text book and test a few words to see if he knew the Chinese characters or not...

To my surprise…. Jay is having problems recognise the words or the Chinese characters.  

Or dear, the SA2 exam is on Monday, and there are some many words (the circled words) he don’t know how to read or don’t know what they mean!

Then, I quickly take a good look at the text book.

Oh dear, the text book has lots of Han Yu Pin Yin on it.

No wonder, when you ask him read the paragraph, he is able to read it without problem.  

He is actually reading the Han Yu Pin Yin, instead of memorise and understand the words.

The text book only have a few lines that does not have the Pin Yin on it.  But usually those lines are very easy lines with easy words.  If there are some words they not suppose to learn at their level, they will put the Pin Yin on top of the word.

So, during the class, the teachers read out aloud to them.  They usually read it from their text book too.

The teacher did not emphasise or write down the words for them to recognize.

Jay has no problem on the Chinese Characters that he got test on writing (Ting Xie).  But those characters that he suppose to know how to read, there are plenty of them that Jay don’t know what it means.  As there are no Han Yu Pin Yin on top of it.

So, quickly, I write down every single words that he suppose to be tested on onto the flash cards.

I think the flash card is the only way that I can think of helping him to memorise.

Jay also found it very fun to use the flash card to learn all the words.

So, those he knows put on the right pile.  Those he does not know or need long time to figure out what word is that, then, we place it on the left.  So that he can see the words all the time.

Like this we practise it for 1-2 days.  He finally got all the 100 words memorised by hard.

Hope he will do well tomorrow.

After he learned all the words and I ensure that he really knows what it mean and what word is that, then, I let him play the football games I bought for them.  So that they can play and be happy all time and then sleep early.  

My Comments:

1.  Don’t be fool by your kids.  When they pick up the story book and start reading out aloud, don’t always think that they know.  If the book comes with Han Yu Pin Yin on top every words, the kid likely only know how to read them, but does not recognise them if you remove the Han Yu Pin Yin.  So, they might not know what it mean, and how to pronounce the words.

2.  Both my kids have the same habit.  They memorise the sentence.  Note that I said they memorise “the sentence”.  They do not necessary understand what the individual words mean?  Like my Kay Kay, he will only remember the photo or pictures and then, from there, he remember the sentence.  So, later, if you point to him and ask him to recognise the word on a separate blank paper without the pictures, the kid will usually have problem recognise the word.

3.  Every story book comes with the vocab list.  So, make sure you test your kid on the vocab list without the Han Yu Pin Yin.  Make sure they recognise the word.  If they don’t then, help them.  Break the word and try to make up a “story” so that they can remember the word. j 

4.  I like this book.  Because it does not have the Han Yu Pin Yin. That will ensure the kid will learn by hard to memorise each Chinese Characters.

5.  If you run out of time, you may want to use the Flash card method.  Write all the words he suppose to learn on the flash card and then one by one test him.  I wrote down 100 words.  And after running thru it, left with 11 he does not know.  So, we keep making drills for him to see those 11 cards and eventually he remembers it all.