刘老师 has asked for feedback on a possible morning session for Chinese class.

Judging from the responses, most parents seem to prefer morning session to afternoon.

Which leaves us in the minority, cos Beth has keyboard/piano in the mornings.

Another development we particularly approve of is doing away with the no-class-on-long-weekends policy.

The school used to give students the Sat off if it was a long weekend, but this year, they decided to change strategy. Students continue to have lessons on Queen's Birthday and Melbourne Cup weekends, but the benefit is that they finish the term early. So this Sat 25 June is the last lesson for Term 2, whereas Beth's Yamaha class would probably continue right up to 2 July.

Learning Mandarin

The 4 yo is doing better than anyone expected.

She can recite three 儿歌, is amazingly enthusiastic about reading her textbooks and doing her homework, and pronounces her 汉语拼音 in an adorable Aussie accent.

Won't be long before she catches up with Big 姐姐。

Progress in Chinese class

Miss J was a bit distracted on Sat.

Was it because she was sitting with her friend T?

Was it because, as hubby reported, she had to share her books with a new student, a boy who doodled on her page until the teacher had procured him a set of books?

Was it because Mummy turned up midway to change shifts with Daddy, and she got a bit distracted and decided to act up?

Anyway, when I announced today that we were going to sit down and do her Chinese homework together, she showed such glee and enthusiasm as would make a conscientious mother smile.

We dutifully went through the a o e i u yu (that should be a u with 2 dots over it, but I can't type it out), the four accents for each, and the dialogue she had learned for family members and how to greet someone (你好). Was so surprised that she had memorized parts of the 儿歌：

小白兔，白又白
两只耳朵竖起来
爱吃罗卜爱吃菜
蹦蹦跳跳真可爱

As the proverb goes, 好的开始是成功的一半！

First Chinese Class For The 4 Year Old

5 Feb was enrolment day at Werribee Chinese School.

This year, I had to queue twice, once for New Enrolments and once for Current Students.

We enrolled our 4 yo for the first time, but not without some misgivings.

A school mum whose daughter has been attending the school along with Beth since kinder days advised me to wait a year before enrolling Miss J. Her opinion is that at 4, she's too young to understand what's going on, especially if she can't read/write yet. She says Oz is different from China and SG, where the teachers are strict in insisting that even very young children sit still and pay attention when a lesson is going on. In Oz, she says, kids get away with distracting behaviour and inattention and the teachers are either not fussed or don't want to offend the parents.

So when I spoke with one of the teachers at the school, my first question was is 4 yo too young an age to start Chinese school?

The reply: "All kids start off not knowing how to read/write."

Duh.

When I ventured further to ask what happens if I enrol for the full year but have to take my child out halfway (say after Term 1) because she can't cope, the reply was "It's too bad. You forfeit the remainder of the terms."

Such is the customer friendliness of the Chinese. An Aussie would have couched it in more polite and sympathetic terms.

So I opted to enrol Miss J for one term.

Then came another revelation: Miss J does not qualify for government funding as she is not yet of school age, which is only reckoned from Prep onwards.

So her yearly fees are higher than Beth's: $415 (textbooks included) vs. $295 (ditto).

In all, Miss J's Term 1 fees came to $145, including textbooks.

The next challenge was settling her into her classroom.

We're thankful Miss J had her good friend T with her.

Our families have much in common. T's parents are also SG migrants. T's older brother and Beth are classmates this year (they were classmates as well in Prep and Year 1), so our families have been on friendly terms for a number of years. Miss J gets on particularly well with T. They are both second-borns, extroverted, quick, confident and unafraid.

With T by her side providing a level of comfort and security, Miss J settled in very quickly and stopped asking Mummy to sit with her.

From our positions at the back of the class, it became clear that neither girl could follow what the teacher was saying: she spoke only in Mandarin, with an occasional lapse into Cantonese for the benefit of the Cantonese-speaking student in the front row.

So it fell to me to help them find the correct book, turn to the correct page, translate what the teacher was saying into English etc.

After an introduction to "a o e" in the four intonations, the teacher decided to test each student's understanding. We thought Miss J would surely not be able to understand what was going on, but when the teacher pointed to the board, Miss J correctly answered "a o e".

The teacher beamed, and so did we.

What a moment!

This afternoon, I got out her Chinese books and Miss J insisted on doing additional writing even though she had already finished her homework in class. So she wrote a few extra lines of "a o e" and “一“.

We also read through the names she had learned in class: 爸爸，妈妈，宝宝，婷婷，嘟嘟.

Jie Jie was fascinated enough to lean over to find out what her sister's textbooks contained and to see how much of it was familiar.

Perhaps with both of them feeding off and inspiring each other, they will help each other excel.

And Jie Jie won't feel like she's the only one who's being forced to study Chinese.

Transferring school

It's done.

Have put in Jordanne's enrolment application for Good News Lutheran for 2012.

Was going to put in Beth's as well, but we had a couple of questions/concerns about LOTE Chinese, so I'm holding on to her application till I get those issues sorted.

Beth and I had a look at some past exam papers for Chinese as a second language, and surprisingly, she thought she might get to the level where she's good enough to understand the exam requirements and even do well in the exam.

She made an innovative case for staying on in Heathdale: at Year 5, she would be able to see what the students get to learn in Chinese class. Plus, she might even excel because of the headstart she's had through community language school classes. :-)

One of the questions CA and I had was if you need to be in a school that offers LOTE Chinese in order to take it up as an elective for VCE. From the comments of various parents as well as our own observations and research, it seems the answer is NO.

Judging from the kind of LOTE material Heathdale students use for Year 5 onwards, as well as the school policy of 6 months of French lessons followed by 6 months of Chinese, the intent seems to be to expose the student to different cultures rather than to prepare them to eventually sit the VCE. That eliminates the one big reason for remaining at Heathdale.

If Beth is at all serious about taking VCE Chinese, she will most probably have to switch to an intensive Chinese language coaching school (New Century, Chinese Culture School or Xin Jin Shan) that specialises in preparing students to be proficient enough to sit the VCE.

100 marks plus five

Beth seems to have come off her i-hate-chinese mountain.

This past week she has been calmer and more amenable to doing her homework.

On Sat when I picked her up from Chinese class, she sheepishly told me she got 80% for her 听写.

I asked what her best pal Jennifer got.

"100 marks, plus 5 extra for knowing how to write 黑."

I bit back on my urge to lecture, and simply asked how she felt about it, and what she planned to do about it.

The upshot was she decided there was nothing for it but to study (Chinese) every day, even when she's not in the mood.

And we agreed it would be a good idea if I gave her a mini-tingxie every day of the week. Say 5 phrases at a time.

And she would try to get at least 90% the next time.

Parent in Meltdown

Another meltdown this afternoon from The One Who Hates Chinese. Again, triggered by a reminder to do her homework.

Now she hates jujitsu too.

She wants a day when she has no extracurricular activities at all. I guess there was always going to be this point, when she found 1.5 hours of music and 3 hours of Chinese too much for a Sat.

I am now contemplating letting her off Term 4 Chinese. We could call it a break - and hopefully next Feb she will have outgrown this phase and feel better about things.

My Perfect Parent half feels like this is the beginning of the end. If she's going to give up on Chinese at 8, what are the chances she will want to get back to it when she's a little older? And if she's allowed to give up so easily, how will this affect her attitude to studies and life in general?

My Compassionate Parent half feels this isn't a battle worth fighting. It's rupturing family harmony and it's just plain too hard to keep up every week. Maybe if I don't fight her on this, she will grow out of this phase naturally and want to come back to it when she is a bit more mature.

My 70 yo friend tells me my battles with Beth are because she is 8. That is apparently the age her son was when he drove her barmy with his tantrums, rebellion and smart-mouthing. But we're talking 8, not 13, I protested. If at 8 she has started to give me the grays, what's going to happen when she becomes a full-fledged teen?

Said friend had some practical tips. Make time to do fun things with Beth. Take her shopping for girly things. Go for a coffee together after Chinese classes. That will give her something to look forward to.

All wonderful ideas, which I wouldn't have thought up myself. All I know, and all I've been raised to do, is the top-down approach: scold, nag, threaten and insist. Now I have to learn to act against my natural instincts and be a completely different sort of mother.

The kind I wish I'd had.

Struggles Learning Chinese in Australia

Blew my top yesterday while trying to get Beth to complete her Chinese homework.

She literally had a meltdown: tears, tantrums, sitting on the floor wailing that she hated Chinese and didn't EVER want to go back to SG (where bilingualism is a must at school)...

Why is it so hard to teach my child her mother tongue in Australia??

Guess I already know. I don't even speak Chinese to her at home. And the learning environment at school is pro-monolingualism (pity Kevin Rudd's no longer the PM). They call other languages LOTE - Languages Other Than English! Latin is introduced only at Grade 3 and LOTE in Middle School. How to cultivate a love for language like that?

Was chatting with a couple of mums recently who are of Asian origin. My Japanese friend has initiated a home routine whereby her 8 yo gets up at 7 am every school morning and does 30 min of Jap language via Nintendo DS and textbooks that she specially orders from Japan.

My China friend makes her 8 yo do Chinese assignments everyday. That's on top of the Chinese homework that she already has to do. The daughter goes to the same Chinese school as Beth and has been getting top marks, despite dad being angmoh (the dad attends the Chinese class with her and pays separate fees as a mature student!).

I looked up Google today to track down a Nintendo DS game that might help. And found My Chinese Coach.

Could this be The Answer?

Multicultural Wyndham

Just received a note from Beth's Chinese school principal.

The school has been invited to take part in Harmony Day as part of the annual Weerama street festival, and Beth and her friend Jennifer S have been selected to be in the choir.

It'll be interesting for Beth to be a participant for a change, and to have a chance to demonstrate her Chinese-ness to our predominantly angmoh community.

Wonder what songs they'll be singing?

Learning Chinese Using Accelerated Learning Techniques

Am reading up on the use of Accelerated Learning of Chinese by the Australasian Centre of Chinese Studies (ACCS).

It claims to teach in a way that engages both sides of the brain, encouraging absorption by positive suggestion.

Check out the videos here.

Chinese Language School: Which Is Best For My Child?

Beth has just finished her third year with Werribee Chinese School...

...And still can't hold a decent conversation in Mandarin.

The school's not to blame of course. Learning a language has to be reinforced on many fronts, especially at home. Three hours a week on a Sat afternoon is the bare minimum.

It's poor consolation to know that we are not alone in being somewhat lacking in self-discipline when it comes to equipping our kids to be bilingual.

We have friends who are holding off sending their kids to Chinese class because it's such a hassle, because one or both parents can't speak Chinese/aren't terribly interested in Chinese anyway/ had bad experiences at school/moved to Aus to escape compulsory Chinese language learning so what's the point of forcing their kids to learn Chinese. Certainly, most would agree that weekend classes can be such a damper when there are more fun things to do, as they regularly take half a Sat away from precious family time and require considerable commuting time.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have friends who are contemplating transferring their kids to a 'better' Chinese school. One that has is well-regarded by other Chinese families, conducts lessons only in Chinese, offers tutoring up to Year 12, and is professionally run with native speakers.

Some schools that have come up in conversation are:

• Xin Jin Shan Chinese Language and Culture School in Braybrook
• VSL@ Taylors Lakes
• VSL@Melbourne High

The trouble is, these classes all run in the morning (from about 9.30-12 plus), and Beth is already committed to Yamaha keyboard class from 9.45-10.45 till 2011.

So for now, the options are:

• Homeschool Beth myself (she would love this option because it means getting away from three-hour Sat afternoon classes in a subject she is not yet competent in, but it will mean enormous patience, diligence and discipline on my part)
• Continue with Werribee Chinese School (which is moving to Point Cook in 2010, a much more pleasant learning environment compared to the current Glen Orden PS).
  

Sat 12 Dec was the last class for the year. During the annual party, I had a chat with the principal about Beth's progress. She had some interesting comments. She said it was for us as parents to decide, but she feels Beth still needs a lot of encouragement and hand-holding but she is otherwise doing well and has a good learning attitude (as evidenced by the Outstanding Student of the Year award she received).

I had a look at the new curriculum for 2010 and was pleased (being a typical Singaporean parent) to observe that the new workbook sets out daily homework to be completed. This regimen of forced daily learning will definitely help her build confidence and competence and sustain her interest and motivation in time to come.

One problem we have as a family is that I haven't been very diligent in making sure I converse in Mandarin with Beth or that we watch Chinese DVDs and play Chinese computer games. So that will have to be a goal for 2010: to offer daily exposure in the form of age-appropriate and level-appropriate activities and learning opportunities that stimulate, engage and help her become gradually proficient in Chinese.

Just because we no longer live in Sg is no excuse to be slack about learning languages.

As a recent study by the Uni of Melbourne puts it:

No country wants 18-year old citizens whose education has not challenged the naturally ethnocentric worldview they held as kindergarten children, and this fundamental benefit of language learning at school, along with the cognitive skills and affective maturity it also develops, is recognised internationally.

If previously monolingual Aus is now beginning to recognize the importance of proficiency in Chinese, how much more we, who hail from a tiny but successful country that has insisted on bilingualism at school, and whose graduates are well placed to live and work in other countries because of this far-sighted policy.

**Breaking News**
Beth decided - quite unexpectedly for us - that she would like to continue with Werribee Chinese Class next year.

As long as her good friend Jennifer (who has been her classmate @ WCS for the past 3 years and goes to HCC) is still attending classes with her!

Learning Chinese Under Duress

I have been trying to impress on Beth the beauty, elegance and wisdom of 华语, to little avail.

She wants me to tutor her one-on-one next year so she doesn't have to go for the weekly three-hour session at Werribee Chinese School.

So today, we watched a DVD that teaches, in 5-min sessions, the word structure of commonly used words.

一人大
二人天
日月明
小大天

The first two characters add up to form the third.

With a bit of imagination and the right graphics/animation, it's easy for a beginner to remember what the word means.

Beth writes down the 汉语拼音, which she is quite good at now, and (with great effort) copies the chinese characters.

The plan is to do one segment a week with 听写 and eventually 默写.

Side note:

I wish the school would get a professional, keyword-search-optimized website that shows up immediately in search engines, instead of the 'free' sites it now uses. I keyed in 'werribee chinese school' into Google (how much more specific can you get?), and the school didn't show up even after page 5! I gave up searching after that, and had to fall back on the latest Principal's Report for the site URL. And that cheesy Congratulations banner at the top that screams Spam/Virus/Hype... Definitely room for improvement there.

Maybe I should talk to them about how SBI! can help...