Jerry (4) and James (6) had their eyes closed and asked me: “Are you ready?” I was busy trying to find a good place to hide the bouncy ball. They couldn’t wait to start playing the Hot and Cold game in Mandarin Chinese. One of them was “whispering” rè rè rè (hot). The other one was giggling lěng lěng lěng (cold). This was their first time playing this game in Mandarin but they were ready to start.
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Teach Chinese to Your Child: When There Is Resistance “I am not going to speak Chinese to you anymore, Mom. No one is speaking Chinese except you.” I thought I was doing a good job until the day my 7-year-old son announced his decision about speaking Mandarin Chinese. He told the truth. I was the only one who speaks Mandarin to him at home. No one in his class speaks Chinese. None of his teachers speaks Chinese.
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Playful Chinese podcast is lighthearted and high-spirited. It is to experience the joy of learning a new language or a heritage language. It is the work I do with children and parents who are new to Mandarin. That’s what you do as you provide your child with the Chinese language and culture learning opportunity. The work we do because we know it is important for the young mind. Therefore, a new podcast. The voice of the Chinese
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Teach Chinese to your child after you have started. Congratulations! You have started the journey with your child. What’s next? Start small and keep it going. Why start small? It is manageable for you and it is not overwhelming for your child. Keep it going. This is the key. Add a small dose of the target language, Chinese to your child’s day. It is building a routine. The routine consists of little things. Keep it simple. Keep
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I want to introduce Chinese to my kid but I am not sure where to start. Where do you start? This is what the school taught us about learning a foreign language. Listening Speaking Reading Writing Repeat after me. Memorization. It is needed but it does not stick. I learn and I forget. Rote learning vs. Inquiry-base learning. I’ve taken French for a couple of years but when I moved to Montreal, Canada. I realized that the
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Chinese tones practice rain or fish. We are looking at two commonly used Chinese words and we have them in two sentences. Children enjoy listening to songs. When they hear songs they hear intonation. Mandarin is a tonal language like many Asian languages. If you sing you have experience with tones. So, the more you and your child listen to songs, sentences, and stories the better you are familiar with tones in Mandarin. Listen and listen more.
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Chinese Tones candy or soup? This tone card has two Chinese words with the same sound but different tones. Listen to the audio and have your child point to the matching picture. Listen to the audio recording for the tone card. What does Bao Bao want? Candy or soup? How about Miss Panda? Does Miss Panda want to have candy or soup? What does your child want? How about you? Chinese Tones Practice Candy or Soup in
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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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