My family settled in Australia when Dodo was three years old, so Dodo couldn't speak Chinese at all, and taught him some Chinese words like "Dad "," Mom "," Grandpa" and "Grandma" when he was at home.
But as Dodo grew, I found that my initial perception was one-sided. Dodo began to go to school, in the school for the reason of communicating with students and teachers, more and more accustomed to speak English, even at home when a mouth is also with us in English communication, which makes me very worried.
In addition, dodo did not know a few characters before, in order not to make dodo strange chinese, I began to find ways to strengthen the dodo chinese tutoring, first of all, I want to find a professional chinese teacher or find a reliable chinese school around.
"1. The Struggle Period for Chinese Learning "
When I first asked, a lot of Chinese friends didn't quite understand, because their children didn't have to learn anything, so they naturally spoke Chinese, and in their eyes, Chinese didn't need to be specially studied.
In fact, the domestic and foreign language environment is really very different, in Australia, we do not have an immersive Chinese environment. Dodo himself is more playful, so many chinese proficiency in australia has been basically stagnant or even worse.
In addition, my city is not like Sydney, Melbourne, there will be a lot of Chinese, there will be more opportunities to find good Chinese teachers.
Finally, I found a Weekend language school, nearly two hours'drive from my home. After class, I have to drive 2 hours a week to send more to school for Chinese class. God knows how I had the courage to make such a choice!
Going to Chinese school lasted about four weeks and Dodo and I were tired.
The first is that the journey time is too long, Dodo is only five years old, the child is too young, in the car for a long time on the easy mood;
The second is the weekend Chinese school to give children a long access to the Chinese language, a class duration of up to 1 hour, and also have classes in the morning and afternoon, which is undoubtedly another kind of "culture" for Dodo.
Several times after class, the little guy had a bitter face every weekend, and our mother and I had spent so much effort not to see the effect of learning more in Chinese. So I finally decided to discuss with my husband, do not let more go to Chinese school, to study Chinese we will find a way to find a Chinese teacher at home to give more classes!
But the problem with finding a chinese tutor is that there is no professional chinese teacher near our home, we have contacted the chinese teachers in some places, and we have to pay the tutoring fee, the distance fee and so on.
"2. Early dawn "
I asked my friends abroad if they had any good advice. One of the friends told me that I could try the online Chinese tutoring class, use the computer at home to teach, do not have to run back and forth, but also the teacher one-on-one tutoring, also high efficiency.
At first I was skeptical about online teaching, after all, many have been only to take face-to-face classes with teachers, and he is more naughty, cannot sit, I worry that online teaching more will not adapt.
But friends say we can try it first, try it after class, and because I don't have a better choice for a while, plus my friend's kids are there, and it's pretty good. So we went to our friend's recommended website, eChinese Learning, to register our son for a free trial.
To my surprise, after the first audition, Dodo felt so good that it didn't produce the same rejection as in previous Chinese schools.
The first is that their Chinese class hours are reasonably set, which is scientifically determined according to the basic rules and behavior characteristics of children's learning and development, not as long as the weekend Chinese school, and the time arrangement is more flexible, so the children are not so tired and can also sit and live.
Second, eChinese Learning has a good way of educating teachers, who use small games or other software features to keep their attention even through online classes.
I'm very impressed that when it comes to animals, the teacher will use the special effects in the software to add the corresponding animal special effects to her and Dodo, such as the rabbit will have a pair of cute rabbit ears and big tooth special effects, both cute and interesting, Dodo also very much like, and he will be very active to communicate with the teacher in Chinese.
Moreover, the whole chinese class is all chinese teaching, even if there are some sentences or words do not know, the teacher also use english as little as possible, but use some gestures and body language to tell the meaning of the word dodo, which is also very satisfactory to me.
It's not that she can't speak English, but that she will use Chinese instead of English in order to improve her children's learning effect, which will lead her students to practice Chinese more, even if they speak wrong, teachers will encourage their children to express their courage.
"3. Get on track "
In addition to the class, the teacher also gave me some advice after class to help me learn more Chinese.
I remember once I discussed with the teacher to read more Chinese books, some time I found that more and more do not like to read Chinese books, the family bought all kinds of Chinese picture books he did not like to read, as soon as he read will be noisy.
The teacher asked me how to let more reading, I said that is to find more for him to read a Chinese story book or small children's book he had not read before, usually will let him stay in the living room to read, because I will often go to the kitchen busy, he is in the living room, anything I can take care of.
The teacher asked again," So, are most of them reading by themselves? "
I recalled some pictures of Dodo reading, then nodded.
So the teacher told me that if a boy like Dodo is usually more playful, he is certainly not happy to sit there quietly alone, and for a child, his own reading alone is not as good as reading with his parents, because it is difficult for us to judge whether it is a picture or a word when reading alone.
So the teacher suggested that when I looked at the Chinese picture book after more, I should concentrate on watching it with more, and the teacher patiently shared with me how to provide some guidance to my children at the learning level.
In particular, thanks to teacher Theresa's sharing, and in her way, I have learned a lot about parenting. In the daily parent-child reading, the scientific method is really important, according to the teacher recommended learning style, to enhance the interaction between me and Dodo, but also to ensure that Dodo in the Chinese reading "input" and "output" effect.
After nearly a year of Chinese classes in eChineseLearning, I can clearly feel the great improvement of Dodo's Chinese, and now Dodo can read the Chinese stories in some picture books independently, except for the individual unfamiliar words, he has little problem with the understanding of picture book stories. I used to read it to him, but now he's going to read stories to me more often, and at home he's getting used to communicating with me in Chinese.
"4. Possible future "
Next, the goal of learning more is to improve the ability to write Chinese characters, both to write a beautiful Chinese characters, but also to write some fluent Chinese small sentences in Chinese.
In addition, I also hope to let the teacher teach more knowledge of Chinese etiquette, China has been a state of etiquette since ancient times, let more learn more about Chinese traditional culture from childhood, so that no matter where he goes after that, I believe he will remember his roots.
We've been planning to enroll more in the next year's Chinese course, or in eChineseLearning, by the way, if there's a need for Chinese learning recently, I suggest that you can go to eChineseLearning as well.
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Author: Dodo Mom, with a 6-year-old child, settled in Australia, likes painting, yoga, handwork. Hoping to grow up with children on the path to parenting, and looking forward to recognizing that more friends, especially those who also walk on parenting, can have the opportunity to discuss and share.