For those learners who are parents and are planning to introduce or even learn Mandarin together with your kiddos (some schools have introduced Chinese in classes), then here is a few tips on how to do it. It is based on my experience, however, you can always modify it yourselves. I find that each kid have their own strengths and weaknesses, so adjusting your the teaching method is important.
However, there are things that always work in my class:
1. Story sharing
For example, when you are learning about weather, make it relevant to the day where you introduce certain weather. Rainy season during the rainy day and tell a story on what can happen during the rainy day, thunder, storm, lightning, what to do and not to do, etc.
2. Big movement and Rich facial expression
For example; when you are explaining something is hot, then you have to "pretend" that when you touch hot stuff, then you might get burn, and when you get burnt, how would you feel? Show it on your face. It is not necessarily, real stuff, because it is not rational to hurt ourselves just to teach the kiddos, so use the "pretend play" method. It is not something that Montessori will encourage to do, but I find it works for me.
There was once I was encouraging my students not to play too much with gadget, as it might affect their vision in the long run. There is even a term for it now called "Smartphone blindness", we do not want that to happen to our kids. So in order to explain it to them how blindness feel like, I asked them to put on a blindfold, and then I ask them to retrieve certain things for me. They can't do it well. Then I asked them to walk to the door, they bumped into each other and found it no fun. So I think it works. Whether or not, they will always remember that blindness might be caused by excessive use of gadget, they sure know how being blind felt like. By doing this, I can teach them about being emphatic towards the visually impared people too, that they might need help due to their condition.
Personally, I see no harm in doing pretend play, but do it with a purpose. I had an aunt that played dead with her one year old daughter, and it caused the daughter to cry so hard. I see no positive outcome for that kind of pretend play, so why do it right?
Anyway, if you are against the pretend play method, show them the appropriate relevant video. There should be plenty out there. Remember, when the video is playing, explain a thing or two and engage them in question and answer, so it is not something passive like watching TV.
3. Use it in real life
When you learn about numbers, do not miss a chance to practice it in every activity that you do thorugh out the day. If you are learning about numbers, count every object that you can ask them to count, the buttons on their shirt, the pencils in their pencil case, the number of toys that have on their bed, etc. REPETITION is the key for children (it is even true for adults).
4. Be Confident!
Children seem to be able to sense our insecurities and doubt. These feelings somehow affect them. You have to be confident when you teach them. I know you are at the learning stage too.. So at least get the basic right for the sake of guiding them. I have seen my sister when she is usure when giving an answer to her primary 3 daughter, although the answer is correct, the daughter doubt that answer.
If we do this often, they will lose trust in us! So, be Confident! However, when you get it wrong, correct it. Do not let your children believing that the wrong fact is the truth, while it is not. It is okay to tell them you are learning too. It might interest them, they might think "My mommy/daddy is learning! I want to do the same thing too." It is said that children like to copy what their parents do, isn't it? There are times that I need to check on certain things when I am unsure, the students seem to forgiving enough about that and that doesn't deter them from asking more questions, because they know they are going to get the right answer from me. But whenever you promise to get back to them about certain thing, make sure you do.
Consider the above 4 points, if it makes sense to you, you can apply it :) I am no parents, those are the tricks that I learnt being an aunt and a tutor.
Let's start!
You have learnt 1 - 100 in Chinese, it might take you a few hours, a few days or a few week to Master them, however, with kids don't push too hard. I haven't seen any kids that fail to master something when I repeat the lesson often enough. Sometimes I don't have the luxury to do so with my students because I only have a few hours in a week, not to mention I have to try to catch up wih the materials taught at school.
Since the purpose of my blog is for life long learning, take your time. Stop before the children are nagging to stop. A friend told me that, if we stop when we think it is enough, instead the children asking to stop, during the next session they will be more enthusiastic. I think this makes so much sense. So you decide how much is enough for your kids. One thing for sure, younger kids have shorter concentration span, so use your time wisely with them. Make it as fun as possible.
In the first 2-3 months of their learning, you can introduce 1 - 10 first to your kids. Then move to 11 - 20 and so on when you see they have mastered the following (at least the reading and speaking, writing is the least important for young kids).
However, there are things that always work in my class:
1. Story sharing
For example, when you are learning about weather, make it relevant to the day where you introduce certain weather. Rainy season during the rainy day and tell a story on what can happen during the rainy day, thunder, storm, lightning, what to do and not to do, etc.
2. Big movement and Rich facial expression
For example; when you are explaining something is hot, then you have to "pretend" that when you touch hot stuff, then you might get burn, and when you get burnt, how would you feel? Show it on your face. It is not necessarily, real stuff, because it is not rational to hurt ourselves just to teach the kiddos, so use the "pretend play" method. It is not something that Montessori will encourage to do, but I find it works for me.
There was once I was encouraging my students not to play too much with gadget, as it might affect their vision in the long run. There is even a term for it now called "Smartphone blindness", we do not want that to happen to our kids. So in order to explain it to them how blindness feel like, I asked them to put on a blindfold, and then I ask them to retrieve certain things for me. They can't do it well. Then I asked them to walk to the door, they bumped into each other and found it no fun. So I think it works. Whether or not, they will always remember that blindness might be caused by excessive use of gadget, they sure know how being blind felt like. By doing this, I can teach them about being emphatic towards the visually impared people too, that they might need help due to their condition.
Personally, I see no harm in doing pretend play, but do it with a purpose. I had an aunt that played dead with her one year old daughter, and it caused the daughter to cry so hard. I see no positive outcome for that kind of pretend play, so why do it right?
Anyway, if you are against the pretend play method, show them the appropriate relevant video. There should be plenty out there. Remember, when the video is playing, explain a thing or two and engage them in question and answer, so it is not something passive like watching TV.
3. Use it in real life
When you learn about numbers, do not miss a chance to practice it in every activity that you do thorugh out the day. If you are learning about numbers, count every object that you can ask them to count, the buttons on their shirt, the pencils in their pencil case, the number of toys that have on their bed, etc. REPETITION is the key for children (it is even true for adults).
4. Be Confident!
Children seem to be able to sense our insecurities and doubt. These feelings somehow affect them. You have to be confident when you teach them. I know you are at the learning stage too.. So at least get the basic right for the sake of guiding them. I have seen my sister when she is usure when giving an answer to her primary 3 daughter, although the answer is correct, the daughter doubt that answer.
If we do this often, they will lose trust in us! So, be Confident! However, when you get it wrong, correct it. Do not let your children believing that the wrong fact is the truth, while it is not. It is okay to tell them you are learning too. It might interest them, they might think "My mommy/daddy is learning! I want to do the same thing too." It is said that children like to copy what their parents do, isn't it? There are times that I need to check on certain things when I am unsure, the students seem to forgiving enough about that and that doesn't deter them from asking more questions, because they know they are going to get the right answer from me. But whenever you promise to get back to them about certain thing, make sure you do.
Consider the above 4 points, if it makes sense to you, you can apply it :) I am no parents, those are the tricks that I learnt being an aunt and a tutor.
Let's start!
You have learnt 1 - 100 in Chinese, it might take you a few hours, a few days or a few week to Master them, however, with kids don't push too hard. I haven't seen any kids that fail to master something when I repeat the lesson often enough. Sometimes I don't have the luxury to do so with my students because I only have a few hours in a week, not to mention I have to try to catch up wih the materials taught at school.
Since the purpose of my blog is for life long learning, take your time. Stop before the children are nagging to stop. A friend told me that, if we stop when we think it is enough, instead the children asking to stop, during the next session they will be more enthusiastic. I think this makes so much sense. So you decide how much is enough for your kids. One thing for sure, younger kids have shorter concentration span, so use your time wisely with them. Make it as fun as possible.
In the first 2-3 months of their learning, you can introduce 1 - 10 first to your kids. Then move to 11 - 20 and so on when you see they have mastered the following (at least the reading and speaking, writing is the least important for young kids).
一 yī One (1)
二 èr Two (2)
三 sān Three (3)
四 sì Four (4)
五 wǔ Five (5)
六 liù Six (6)
七 qī Seven (7)
八 bā Eight (8)
九 jiǔ Nine (9)
十 shí Ten (10)
Depend on how old your child is you can choose to finish counting (verbally) in a session or you can choose to break them down into 3 sessions or more.
For younger kids (e.g. 3 years - 5 years), I like to ask them use their fingers to count. It is exercising their fine motoric skill too :) Take it SLOW but correct!
If you were to break it down into a few session here is how you should do it.
For example, For 4 year old kid, I would like to break it down into 4 sessions.
Session 1 - 1 - 3, I will count one and show my one finger, then 2 = 2 fingers, then 3 = 3 fingers. You can show them the numbers. I, as a mandarin teacher, would usually show the numbers in Chinese character.
Session 2 - 4 - 5, I will refresh their memory about 1 - 3, then add number "4". Repeat counting from 1 - 4. Then add another number "5", and count from 1 - 5. Repeat a few times. Apply this on counting objects. Find those things that are similar, for example: count number of pencils, count number of toes, count number of fish in the tank, all the things that is in one category. Once they are okay, you can move on to counting all things in pencil case, including pencil, sharpener, eraser and ruler.
Session 3 - 6 - 8, Refresh their memory about 1 - 5, then add "6", count 1 - 6. Then, add "7", then count 1 - 7, and so on. And do the same practice as the above.
Session 4 - 9 - 10, Refresh their memory about 1 - 8. Then add "9", and count from 1 - 9. Then add "10" and count from 1 - 10.
If you have a hard time to find 10 objects in one category, you can cut/draw shapes on a piece of paper, and ask them to count it. Even best if you can include them in the cutting and pasting process. It might be the beginning of developing their artistic side :)
The 4 sessions above can include:
1. Verbal counting ONLY (recommended for kids under 2), OR
2. Verbal counting + showing them the Chinese character for the numbers on flash cards (recommended for kids from 2 - 3 year old), OR
3. Verbal counting + showing them the character on flash cards + tracing simple numbers in BIG FONT with fingers/crayon or on a tray of sand/salt (recommended for kids 3 - 5), OR
4. Verbal counting + showing them the character on flash cards + writing the numbers with pencil on writing book (kids above 5 - 6).
Again, the initial writing stage must be done right. Follow the order of strokes, bishun, that you can check on bihua.com.
The above is flexible, depending on the performance of the children. Do not force what they do not want to do. If a 5 year old doesn't feel like writing with pencil yet, it is okay, let them trace on a tray of sand/salt first then. If they want to write but only the easy ones, it is okay too. Let them write 一， 二，三 and 十 first then. They can just learn to read the characters and know what they mean.
Here I found 2 pretty flash card sets that you can print on hard cardboard and hang/stick it on the wall of the children's room or their play/study area. Just to expose them to the learnt material as much as you can.
Source: http://www.gusonthego.com/downloads/chinese-numbers-flashcard-set/
You can register your email and they will send it to your inbox. If the page doesn't open properly, you can key in "Chinese number flash card" into the search box on the site.
The strong point on the above flash card is that your children can count the animals on the pictures and relate them to the number both in Chinese and English/Bahasa,
The weak point is that the Chinese character is small and it doesn't come with pinyin.
Here is another form of flash card that you can use
The good thing about this is that the Chinese character is very dominant and it comes with pinyin too.
However, the weak point is that the animated numbers although look interesting, but it might be a bit confusing, for young learner.
An idea that cross my mind is that I might use both of them and ask your kids, to match one set to the other and while they are matching it they can say the number "Six, liù", see below:
Matching activity
Hope you find it useful. Again, I would like to emphasis, do not expect the children under 7 years old to master the above in one sitting or even one day. It is going to take at least 2 - 4 weeks to master them. In between, we are going to introduce them other things. :) Wait for more tips on how to teach Mandarin to your kids.
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Fun counting :)
Linda Tan
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