We’ve never really written before about our comprehensive
strategy to teach our kids Chinese. My wife originally started this blog to
share the Chinese worksheets she was creating. Since then, we’ve started to put
together a respectable amount of resources for parents that live outside of
China who want to teach their kids Chinese. What we haven’t done yet, though,
is talk in detail about how we go about the entire process of teaching our kids
Chinese. Below is a somewhat comprehensive view of the overall, long term strategy that we are taking. It's a long process, we are trying our best, and it happens one day at a time!
Learning to Speak
Chinese
Speak Chinese to your
kids
The first and most important thing we have ever done is
commit to speak Chinese in the home. This has been difficult, especially
because I am American. My Chinese is not perfect, and my wife’s English will
always be better than my Chinese. Sometimes there is a communication gap. Sometimes it's easier for everyone if we speak English. I consider myself to be a relatively disciplined
person, and it has taken a lot of effort for us to maintain the rule where we
speak Chinese at home. It’s even difficult for my wife, since she’s been in
America for years now and sometimes comes to English words easier than Chinese
words. Lots of our books and other media are in English as well, and sometimes
it’s hard to switch back to Chinese afterwards. So, I can understand how kids
with Chinese parents grow up in America speaking English at home. It's a shame, but I can see how it happens. If the parent’s
speak good English, it’s simply the easiest thing to do. Speaking Chinese when you are not in China takes
effort, even for adults. However, as we’ve been consistent with this rule,
our kids comply. They know they are supposed to speak Chinese. We constantly
reminded them and even went through a phase where they would get sent to time
out if they spoke English. Now, for the most part, it’s not an issue. I’m
guessing it will be get harder as the kids start school and get even more
immersed in English, but for now our 4 year old and 2 year old speak Chinese at
home.
Because we’ve been so strict about this rule, our kids speak
Chinese. I have a friend who took a year of Chinese in college, and my 2 year
old speaks way better Chinese than he does. My four year old doesn’t speak like
a four year old native, but he speaks pretty darn good. He can communicate basically anything
he wants to, as good as a four year old can reasonably be expected to communicate.
We started speaking to them when they were
babies, and they often picked up Chinese words before they picked up English
words. Of course, we didn’t want them to not learn English. That
would make their social development awkward when they went to church or played
with friends. So whenever they learned a new word, we would teach them both the
English and the Chinese. In a way, this made teaching new words easier. To
explain what the new word meant, we could use both English and Chinese to
explain it. I think that a lot of times it made it easier for them to grasp the
meaning, having the extra explanation if it wasn’t clear in one language.
In social situations, it’s OK for them to speak English. We
say that if friends are over or we’re outside and talking to someone else, than
speak English. However, if we’re outside running errands and just talking with
our family, our rule is that we still speak Chinese. Otherwise, as soon as we
leave the house the kids would speak English and never learn much Chinese. Hanging
out at home, there’s really a limited vocabulary that you need to get by every
day. It’s when you’re out and about outside that you see new things and really
need to learn new words and how to say new things. Enforcing the rule to speak
Chinese outside has been very important.
I’ve heard that if kids can keep speaking another language
until they are about 7 years old, then it becomes somewhat permanent. It’s
amazing how fast they can forget. Once when our oldest was almost three, we
spent a month at my parents house. We spoke English the entire time. When we
got home, we realized that he had forgotten A LOT of his Chinese. Even basic
things like colors didn’t come back to him right away. Hopefully if we keep it
up Chinese will be a permanent part of his brain some day.
Send them to China
One good thing that we might do some day is send our kids to
China for a while. We’ve visited my wife’s family several times and spent a
month at a time in China. Unfortunately, my wife’s family lives in a small town
and speaks a dialect similar but more complicated than Shan Dong Hua. Native
Chinese speakers think it’s easy to understand, but it’s difficult for me. This
means they don’t really have full immersion of mandarin when they go there, and
it’s probably hard for them to understand everything. Nonetheless, it’s
surely beneficial for them anyway.
Let them watch Chinese
TV
We’ve written several posts about letting our kids watch
Chinese cartoons. Our kids used to watch 1 or 2 episodes of English cartoons or
children’s shows on most days of the week. We don’t have cable or even an
antenna, but we do have Amazon prime and there’s no shortage of kids shows for
them to watch. For the past 2 months, however, they almost never watch English
TV shows. We’ve used our Roku to show them Chinese kids shows we find on
youtube. There’s tons of kids TV shows on youtube for them to watch. We have
written about two of them, Qiao Hu and Lao Hu Huan Xiang. I feel no guilt when
they watch TV. Not only are they having fun and being entertained, but they are
learning Chinese. I don’t feel like their brains are rotting away in front of
the TV set. To the contrary, they are learning more about Chinese culture and getting
immersed in the language.
Sing to them in Chinese
If you grew up in China, chances are you know some Chinese nursery rhymes. Sing them to your kids! If you don't know them, learn them. There are many on youtube you can find.
Listen to Chinese Music
This is one that we haven't really tried yet... our kids are starting to really appreciate American Music, and we bias them with our eclectic taste of indie rock and folk rock. I am thinking we should listen to more Chinese music, but both my wife and I don't have nearly as much Chinese music on hand.
Read Chinese books to
them
We have 100+ English kids books. There’s so many books out
there it’s hard to be a parent in America without accumulating lots of them.
And that’s a good thing. We have a much smaller supply of Chinese books, but we
always jump at the chance to read Chinese books with them. Every Chinese book
teaches them new words. You might be surprised how many Chinese books your local
library has. If they don’t have some at your local branch, most cities still might
have some that you can request be sent to your library. Eventually, we hope that Amazon starts carrying more Chinese books. It's so easy to buy from Amazon that I know we and others would buy more if they carried them.
Learning to Read
and Write Chinese
Our 4 year old has gotten to the point where he can probably
read about 150 – 200 characters. He can probably write from memory about 80. This
has been a combination of us giving him worksheets to do, us reading him books,
and probably mainly him playing with the iPad.
The blog has a page on different Chinese worksheets, and
there’s lots of resources out there for free. There’s also worksheets you can
buy. Keep in mind that these are more time intensive. For your kid to get
anything out of a worksheet, you are going to need to coach them through it.
You can’t just expect them to do it by themselves and learn something.
iPad apps, on the other hand, pretty much do all the
teaching for you. We’ve found about 4 apps that we really like, that are
affordable, and that do a great job teaching our kids Chinese characters.
One of them is called Chinese Writer, where for $10 you can
have access to 5000 characters. The app lets you practice writing the characters
on the iPad, you can create different practice packs for your child, and there’s
a little game which is surprisingly fun and great practice for both kids and
adults. I think it’s very effective. We have a little Chinese book that we read
with my oldest, and I’ve put all the new characters from the book into a practice
pack on the app. After several episodes of playing with the app, my son is
almost able to read the book by himself now. We made a small practice pack with the numbers 1-10, and our two year old was able to learn the numbers quite easily.
The other apps are basically fancy versions of flash cards
or animated stories that teach you characters along the way and have little quizzes
and games as you progress through the story. They are fun, my kids love them,
and they actually learn stuff as they play. It’s way better than them wasting
their brain on the iPad playing things like fruit ninja or plants vs zombies.
We don’t have a lot of experience yet teaching our kids to
read and write, but we are encouraged with the results. We really hope we can
get to the point where they learn enough characters to be able to read
recreationally when they are a few years older. I was raised in a family of
readers, and I remember reading books for fun as early as second grade. If we
can get our kids to this level, they will be set for life, since they will
continue to read for fun and improve their language skills.
That’s our goal!
EDIT:
Check out how we're doing: a video of our son reading Chinese.
Any other tips or suggestions?
