For parents whose kids have attended (local) schools in both China and Taiwan - are you able to judge which place will give your kids a better foundation in Chinese?
This is a practical matter for my family - kid is 4, we need to decide where to school him… whether in Shanghai or Taipei.
Anecdotes are welcome, but even more appreciated would be studies that have been done. I tried to search for academic studies but couldn’t find any.
Thank you.
I don’t have an answer, but that seems to be like asking is USA, UK, Australia, or another English speaking country better to to give kids a foundation for English. So more important questions might revolve around environment, quality of life, future potential for children, etc.
Living in China, in the right situation, might give children huge future potential, insight, and connections, whereas Taiwan maybe not so much. Totally different living environment for someone looking for future opportunity, either for children or as adults.
Wouldn’t the school and teachers have a greater impact than the city?
Thank you. I think both responses make sense.
I guess it’s also the curriculum… I wouldn’t want to subject him to history classes in China for example. But I suppose at a young age they really don’t have exposure to that yet.
In China your kids would be subjected to Communist propaganda. That’s one thing to consider. There’s also the matter of simplified vs. traditional characters.
It depends what you mean by a better foundation in Chinese. Local schooling will give your child native-speaker language skills. If you mean literacy level, Taiwan’s education system is on a par with China’s but the most highly pressured Shanghai schools probably teach to a higher level. Readers of traditional Chinese can understand simplified characters much more easily than vice versa.
Both systems are so highly pressured at junior high onwards that many parents with Western backgrounds try to avoid them. Personally I wouldn’t subject a child to Shanghai’s pollution levels.
But as others have said, it varies widely according to the school and teacher.
Again, thanks for all the input. All very valid, including the simplified vs. traditional and propaganda.
His native language is Chinese, and the plan is for him to have a few years in TW / CN before moving back to the US.
Another issue is pinyin vs. bopomofo. Pinyin is more useful these days, but I think that can be picked up rather quickly.
In good school in major cities in Taiwan.
[quote=“BAH”]Again, thanks for all the input. All very valid, including the simplified vs. traditional and propaganda.
His native language is Chinese, and the plan is for him to have a few years in TW / CN before moving back to the US.
Another issue is pinyin vs. bopomofo. Pinyin is more useful these days, but I think that can be picked up rather quickly.[/quote]
Once you’ve mastered a romanization system, other systems takes less than 15 minutes to get the basics down. Going from bopomofo to a romanization also takes less than 15 minutes. However, that isn’t so the other way around. It is comparable to how easy it is for native Japanese or Korean users to learn how to romanize Kana or Hangul, but those who only know romanization would have a much steeper learning curve picking up Kana or Hangul.
The Taiwanese claim by learning bopomofo you can learn Chinese better. I learned Chinese, not using bopomofo despite studying in Taiwan (MTC NTNU). I just skipped the 1 week mandatory class for Zhuyin. My Chinese is ok despite only learning Pinyin and not much Zhuyin. Same goes for universities with Asian studies (Germany), they claim if you don’t study classic Chinese (Confucius style, before 1911) your Chinese cannot reach a high level. Well, yes and no, to read the old stuff you must be pretty good, to speak and communicate, to read modern Chinese (news, articles) it is not a must, means you can manage.
I see my son (5) to practice bopomofo already (mixed), copying the hieroglyphs in a text book for kids. He did not go to a Chinese kindergarten in Shanghai (we spent there 4 years), but I heard some stories about local schools in Shanghai: