What a great idea!
You could also record yourself reading stories on a CD and let her have her own CD player (you can find them in the classifieds so cheaply) so she can read along with the book, and you can use a bell or other sound to help her know where to turn the pages.
My son also listens to book-on-tape at night when he has trouble going to sleep. He really, really enjoys them.
Why is it so important to you that your daughter speaks and learns English RIGHT NOW?? She is in Taiwan, most people around her and one parent speaks fantastic Chinese so it is easier on the kid. Language is all about communication…what difference does it make if it is in Chinese or sign language. Just keep talking to her in English whenever you can, and reply to her in English if she speaks in Chinese, …if you stress about it, she will sense it and then communicating with dad will not be fun, it’ll become grammar school.
My daughter already speaks two languages and I didn’t want to teach her English, but as soon as she realized that her playgroup is an all English environment, she only speaks to me in broken English sentences…kids adapt quickly
Though I am an English Teacher, I never “taught” my boy English. Sure he went to bilingual Kindy, but I don’t have the frame of mind of most Taiwanese parents I deal with, I needed day care, just like I would have if I was back in my country as I need to go out to work. He still got to play and socialise with kids his own age. At night, I always read him a story, in English as I don’t want to speak Chinese to him as my Chinese grammar and tones are crap and I have a limited vocab, too. So I just spoke with him as I would normally do. If he came and asked me for something or wanted to tell me something that I wasn’t quite sure of what he said, I would say it back to him so he could hear it again. I remember my mum doing that to me when I was a kid, too. Just a natural part of teaching your children anything, but I don’t stress about it. There are too many other things to be stressed about.
There are many theories, ideas and beliefs about this language stuff. I believe to just try and give them the environment and they will do fine. Everyone here in Taiwan speaks Chinese to him, all but me and his English teacher for 6 hours a week. The Chinese teacher at his Elementary school says his Chinese is fine, he got 98% on a worksheet this last Friday. We go back to Australia for a month every year so he has an all English environment then and wow doesn’t his vocab bloom during that time, especially after spending 2 weeks with his Aussie cousins his vocab is very colorful and he is able to use those colorful word in sentences at the “appropriate” times if you could really say that. His English is way ahead of the kids in his English class, though he makes silly mistakes on his homework because he rushes it, (just like I used to). Actually to compare a year 1 kid here in Taiwan to back at home, what they are learning, reading and writing in his English class is leaps and bounds ahead of Year 1 kids back home. Some may say that that isn’t a good thing… I ask him to do all his homework for English class, but if he doesn’t manage to finish it all, I don’t stress, I think his English teacher stresses more. I have told them that I will try to make sure he does it all, but right now Chinese is more important as we are in Taiwan. And he also needs sleep and play. There is more to life than just school. Though his mum is not with us anymore, if she can go to Australia at age 19 and study English for 6 months then attend University and get a degree in Microbiology, come back to Taiwan for a couple of years and then go back to Australia and get a Law degree, both degrees studied in English, I am not stressed about my boy succeeding. Though I don’t get along with his mum, I can give credit where credit is due. Academically, she is brilliant and I can see a lot of his mum in him, which is good as he is a brainiac, good at sports like his mum, but he is also a bugger when he gets angry… He is just cheeky like me…
I am sure we all love our kids and all want the best for them… I know I do… Let’s share our success stories and such that we do for our kids. :bravo:
[quote=“Toe Save”] Face is microscopically quantifiable in the people of this land. Your little girl already understands this. To speak English is to risk making a mistake. Making a mistake is a loss of face. Losing face is the biggest taboo imaginable. So it is instilled in them as soon as they can understand embarrassment. The other kids are laughing at her to bring her down to their level. You see it in classes all the time.
.[/quote]
Nah completely misguided me thinks.
My son grew up speaking Taiwanese first then Mandarin then Japanese wth 3 years in a Japanese school.
He did not learn to speak English until he was 7 years old and went to live in Australia.
Don’t sweat it Connel. These things come in swings and round abouts.
Later on your daughter will speak English with you.
I think you are incorrect on this. My son who is now 17+ is well accepted. He went to lcoal schools and never had any problems.
Had more probems in the American school in Tacihung which has a policy of not allowing the kids to speaj Chinese even during class breaks and at lunch. Not in class is fine.
My son doesnt have ROC nationality either but thats not such a big deal really.
I have it instead 
[quote=“bob”]Good idea.
Video the pages with the pictures and words on them with your voice coming from off camera. At the beginning and end present your person and “night” “night” etc…[/quote]
What if he needs to do faces?
[quote=“Surly”][quote=“bob”]Good idea.
Video the pages with the pictures and words on them with your voice coming from off camera. At the beginning and end present your person and “night” “night” etc…[/quote]
What if he needs to do faces?[/quote]
Well, that’s certainly a dilemma (jin44tui4-liang3nan2 in the mandarin language, a relatively rare instance of hyphenization which I share because I can, and over the internet too) but one that might be solved with the old “cut to” technique that we learned in film school, etc.
I think you need to motivate you wife speak English to your child more. My SO has an accented English, so would rarely use it with our children. Even though it is quite fluent.
It wasn’t until our second son entered an English speaking kiddy and she saw all the biligual children that she quickly changed her tune. Now every night a story in English.
Nothing like a competition with children to motivate a mother. 
Why is it so important to you that your daughter speaks and learns English RIGHT NOW??[/quote]
I guess when I say it stresses me, what I really mean is we can sometimes struggle with a language barrier. It does not happen often, but it does happen. I expect everyone in a mixed family faces this to differing degrees.
For instance we can be playing on the floor, puzzles, drawing painting, doing some activity, and she asks for something usually in English but sometimes in Chinese, most often I know but every once in a while I don’t, could be crayons, scissors, glue, ink stamps, etc… you know just something… the trouble then becomes she does not know the English and I don’t know what she is saying in Chinese… we end up making a few guesses, attempts maybe get it right maybe not… if not need to get assistance from mum… if mum is not around or available… could end in tears.
Amber already has a decent library of DVD’s in English, cartoons, animation and the like. We also have a couple of audio books, and a few audio CD’s. Quite a few books too…
I am getting a couple of webcam’s which I will setup next time I am back, so we can talk more while i am on the road. Talking on the telephone (Skype) without images does not seem to keep her engaged for more than a few minutes, so i’m hoping being able to see me will help.
The recorded bedtime stories is a neat idea and I will also try to record some while I am back…
Anyway, I am not looking at forcing English upon her, or having her study to improve her English, she is a kid. However I would like to find subtle & fun ways to inject some more English environment into her mostly Chinese daily life, especially in my frequent absence.
Gorgeous kid - just beautiful! You should be very proud!
That being said, my God, what an awful show. Connel, your Chinese is pretty good - how do you feel about all the ignorant/offensive comments coming out of those idiot TV hosts? :loco:
Gorgeous kid - just beautiful! You should be very proud!
That being said, my God, what an awful show. Connel, your Chinese is pretty good - how do you feel about all the ignorant/offensive comments coming out of those idiot TV hosts? :loco:[/quote]
Gorgeous, indeed!
But the show… my gawd… I had forgotten just how utterly, utterly ridiculous Taiwanese TV can be. Watching that felt like an acid reflux from a bad breakfast. Argh!
Gorgeous kid - just beautiful! You should be very proud!
That being said, my God, what an awful show. Connel, your Chinese is pretty good - how do you feel about all the ignorant/offensive comments coming out of those idiot TV hosts? :loco:[/quote]
Yes, a bit of a trashy show, but that is the typical level of entertainment that appeals here. Silly comments like one woman saying she should divorce her husband and have a baby with a foreigner so her kids would look cute… plus the usual blunt direct way in which things are said without much consideration. But what can you do, you can’t take the Taiwanese out of a Taiwanese…
Gorgeous kid - just beautiful! You should be very proud!
That being said, my God, what an awful show. Connel, your Chinese is pretty good - how do you feel about all the ignorant/offensive comments coming out of those idiot TV hosts? :loco:[/quote]
Yes, a bit of a trashy show, but that is the typical level of entertainment that appeals here. Silly comments like one woman saying she should divorce her husband and have a baby with a foreigner so her kids would look cute… plus the usual blunt direct way in which things are said without much consideration. But what can you do, you can’t take the Taiwanese out of a Taiwanese…[/quote]
Beautiful kid
So nobody has tried to rent you out or put you to stud yet?
My wife’s cousin said she would like a mixed kid too… unfortunately for her they are not on the ETTV shopping channel yet
We lived in Japan until my daughter was almost four. I read to her and talked to her in English. My wife used half English, half Japanese. I thought, when we got to the US, that her Japanese was much, much better than her English, but after a month in the US it was definitely the other way around. I think what happens sometimes is that a lower level of production in one of two native languages doesn’t necessarily mean the child’s actual language ability is that low. (There’s actually a vibrant debate in the ESL world about how to judge ability vs. simple production of language.)
We’re going to really challenge her now – she 6 1/2 and we’re moving to Keelung where she’ll be in a local school (Sacred Heart). She says she’ll teach all the kids to speak English – no problem!
Anybody out there have kids at Sacred Heart?
