Sorry to hear about that, Petrichor. I sincerely hoped that your son would be alright. I really wish my friend would post here about his experiences. Lately, things have gotten even worse for his eldest daughter…
Do you still find those comments strange?
[quote=“funkymonkey”]Sorry to hear about that, Petrichor. I sincerely hoped that your son would be alright. I really wish my friend would post here about his experiences. Lately, things have gotten even worse for his eldest daughter…
Do you still find those comments strange?[/quote]
No, not in the context of the entire point I made there, which was that in any classroom situation there will be children who are behind others, some children will be behind in some subjects only, some in every subject. This applies whether the child is an immigrant, has few academic skills, or has other problems. Are all such children to be pitied? Situations where some children are behind others are inevitable in standard educational systems. From what I can tell, my son is actually ahead of his classmates in maths, and obviously way, way ahead in English. So I’m not really clear why you’ve picked that particular quote out.
However I do take your wider point that you thought this was inevitable. I’m sorry that your friend’s daughter is still unhappy. Are there really no alternatives available to him? We’re still undecided as to what to do, but at least we have a few options open to us. I wouldn’t want others to take from this that all children struggle. As I said, he has a classmate who is in a very similar situation to him and she’s coping admirably.
Thanks for other comments. I’ll respond when I have more time.
No. They are moving back to Canada as soon as they can. I hope your son can find some happiness at school. You definitely don’t want his feelings of isolation to grow and manifest in to something bigger. I’m sure it is putting a lot of stress on you and your family. Best of luck. 
No. They are moving back to Canada as soon as they can. I hope your son can find some happiness at school. You definitely don’t want his feelings of isolation to grow and manifest in to something bigger. I’m sure it is putting a lot of stress on you and your family. Best of luck. [/quote]
Yes, you’re right. We don’t want this to get worse or even continue. Thanks for your well wishes.
Hi housecat. Yes, I think you’re right. Harry Potter is his way of escaping from the situation and also simply gives him something to do, of course. At the moment it’s difficult to supply home comforts as our situation is still quite spartan. We’re awaiting a small shipment from the UK and when that arrives, which should be any day now, he’ll have a lot more familiar things around him. Thanks for your suggestions of other interests. His piano is in the shipment and I’ve just heard back from the Suzuki Association here that they’ll be able to find a teacher for him. I’ve also got a friend who’s finding out about karate classes in the local area, and he’ll love that, Mandarin instruction or not! So there are some possibilities there. Also, we’re really close to a lovely, popular park with basketball courts. We went down there for the first time the other day and caused a small American Werewolf in London-style stir, but as it’s a small neighbourhood, I imagine that frequent visits will start to build some relationships.
We had a heart-to-heart this evening and he talked about the things that were worrying him. We’ve agreed a way forward and he’s negotiated some rewards (his idea!). For the time being we’re going to continue with his current school, but monitor the situation on a daily basis. If there isn’t an improvement in his well-being soon, then probably we’ll try a private bilingual school where a lot more English is spoken. That will be our last try before returning to the UK or home-schooling. Enrolling him at somewhere like TES would be defeat one of our main objectives in coming here, and we can’t play musical schools indefinitely. I’m hoping to get more involved with his class and the school.
Okami - I can actually understand his teacher’s position, notwithstanding the fact that I’m sure you’re quite right that that is the Taiwanese way. My son can be quite outspoken and has probably been quite abrupt with her. He’s also refused help that’s been offered by other children, children who’ve been asked to come out of their own classes specifically to help him. So I’m sure everyone’s patience is wearing thin and the goodwill is drying up. The school have provided Chinese classes every morning and he has a volunteer mother teaching him. I don’t think I have the right to expect more. The person who will make the most difference now is my son, if he’s able to get through this difficult period.
Dear Petrichor, I hope things are going better for your son & that the communication with him & with the school staff has been productive. 3rd grade is a very hard place to start, though it does sound like you’ve got a school that is eager to try to work with your son’s needs. I have 4 kids in a village school between Danshui & Yangmingshan, less than 100 students & a higher than expected level of staff who speak fair to good English. After reading through all the posts I thought to share my experiences in hopes that some of what we’ve been through & tried might help.
I started my oldest 2 at 7 & 8 years old half way through 1st grade at a slightly larger school closer to Danshui that friends were also attending (after getting finally fed up with attempting to help them learn only using tutors). They had been home schooled & were both a year ahead but we agreed that for total immersion we would drop English school so as not to stress them further. They also love reading so I wasn’t worried about them getting too behind. We explained it to them clearly why they were starting back in 1st grade & they were ok with it. Actually, they were very excited…for about 2 days 
Then everything hit them hard & the first 2 weeks were miserable. We blitzed with supplements we found online (quizlet.com/480514/zhuyin-comple … lash-cards were the most help) gave rewards & got help where we could from a Taiwanese mother who’s kids only spoke & had been schooled in English & were in the same grade, though a different class.
It helped that my son & daughter were in the same class, & that they had other foreign friends in the other classes. This gave them a chance to relax with someone so they weren’t stuck not communicating for the duration of the school day. Their 1st grade teacher did not speak any English, & this helped forced them to make fast progress & use what little they already knew. (But the school nurse was nearby who spoke fairly good English in case they needed help). We also started slowly with added programs & this did seem to help them have the needed break from school. When summer came we opted to put them in the summer school program so they could continue being in the Chinese environment for a few hours a day. It was their favorite as they got help with their (tiny bit) of summer homework & then had playtime, sports, games & activities for the rest of the morning. This was when they were able to use their Chinese conversational in a relaxed environment & gained a lot of confidence.
At the beginning of the next school year the 2 oldest started 2nd grade with the same teacher & we started our 3rd child (age 6) in 1st grade. He’d had much less tutoring but we figured since it was all zhuyin & he was starting at the beginning of 1st grade & his new teacher spoke a bit of English it should be fine. We were wrong. It was her first year teaching, the class was just about full (31 students & they needed 32 to split it :s ) there were 3 students with learning disabilities (our son was one of them, he’s since been diagnosed as ADHD) & her English may have been fine but she lacked experience & confidence in using it. Amazingly, our son had less trials about it than I did. He’s outgoing & quickly made friends (though not always with the helpful sort) & tends to be oblivious to problems around him. We were looking for a kindergarden for our youngest (5 years) & found that the village school had room, English speaking teachers & were willing to only do ½ day to start. In talking with the school staff we realized it would probably be a much better fit for our 3rd child also so transferred him & started the youngest during the midterm break (CNY). We transferred the older 2 also after the next summer school & vacation.
It was (& sometimes still is) hard for our oldest to be in a lower level (he’s now 11 & in 4th grade). Being of a sensitive & nervous nature we don’t feel it would help him at all to jump up a grade as he’s just not language geared, even in English his younger sister has always out spelled him & had better grammar. Our current school has been very understanding & helpful though, going out of their way to make it possible, although not always easy, to succeed. Thankfully the school’s counselor speaks fluent English & we’ve been able to discuss problems, ideas & plans freely. Overall the bschool’s focus seems to e helping the kids feel capable & to enjoy their schooling experience.
We do run into some problems with the teachers taking too much of a “nothing can be done” approach to things we feel are unacceptable (like running away when the younger ones don’t want to do something) but we’ve been able to talk with them (sometimes needing to do so repeatedly so they understand that we are firm on it & not just trying to save face). We now get calls or notes (in English, translated by the English teacher or counselor if needed) & are able to discuss freely as things come up.
Currently, our kids do as much of their homework as they are able to at home & take the rest back to school & get help from the teacher there. For 3rd & 4th grade work, Google Translate has been a big help. Though it often needs to be fixed up, it gives the kids a chance to say what they want although their vocabulary may not yet include all they need.
A few thoughts & things that may help:
Math-I had thought this one topic they should be able to do without help but even my (now) 1st grader struggles with it as it is often story problems. The math words were some of the first ones their friends mother taught them so they would be able to scan over the problem & understand if they should subtract or add, even if they didn’t understand that Meili had 37NT & wanted to know how much more she needed to be able to buy a cake for 41NT. Our 3rd grader with ADHD is given much of his math in simple numeric problems, thus skipping the Chinese reading that is above his level.
Grade-It seems that your school is willing to accommodate but they may have overshot when they put him in 3rd grade. For my oldest kids, 3rd grade was a huge jump & they’d already been in a Chinese school for 1 ½ years with vacation school at every long vacation to help them retain their gains. It would likely be hard for your son to go back a grade or two in the same school in front of those he knows. If the school feels they could tailor the work to meet your sons level (or just a bit above so that he has to stretch a bit but not feel it’s unreachable) then that may be the best. Or, if there’s an option to move him to another school where he can get a fresh start in a place where he feels that its worth trying as what’s expected of him is reachable.
Friends-This is huge, to not feel alone in the trials. If he has other English speaking friends in Chinese school, even if not the same school, maybe they could get together on the weekend to do their homework & compare notes, trials, solutions & life 
Supplements-something we found that was a big help (though much fought in the beginning) was TV, movies & kids documentaries in Chinese. We would put on “extra” viewing in Chinese of things they were familiar with & interested in. As their Chinese progressed they would tolerate higher “doses” & are now fine to watch something that is only in Chinese…if I can’t find it in English But it has helped their listening comprehension quite a bit & it’s nice to hear them laughing at the jokes & then translate it for me if I’m not laughing with them
Websites: We use these for just a few minutes before computer play or sometimes to help with homework for the younger kids :
bbc.co.uk/schools/primarylanguages/mandarin/
edu.ocac.gov.tw/lang/basic/ch_ki … age/sa.htm
hua.umf.maine.edu/Chinese/games/games.html
hello-world.com/Mandarin/index.php?prf=EN
Bilingual schools: For just getting started this might be a good idea. Some of the local ones are primarily Chinese with only a few classes in English & some of them are @ half/half.
Mixed schooling: a friend’s sister-in-law home schools her daughter but sends her to Chinese lessons at the local school a few times a week & as her Chinese improved, she added other simpler classes such as art or PE. Seems to have worked well for her.
Hope something in this (much longer than intended, sorry) ramble will be helpful. I’m sure that as your son adjusts & settles into wherever you feel is best, he’ll do fine. Good luck!
Wow, thanks so much for such a helpful and detailed post. It’s so useful to hear other people’s experiences who are in a similar situation and it’s kind of you to take the trouble. I was actually quite keen for my son to start in grade 1 too, but the school pushed quite hard for him to attend grade 3. However as I’m writing anyway I’ll give an update as to where we are with that question. Thank you too for the website links which I’ll have a look at later.
It’s now been more than two weeks since my last update and things have progressed quite a bit, though we’re still a long way from being out of the woods. The school and other parents have been brilliant in many ways in trying to help us, especially as my son isn’t exactly overwhelming everyone with his gratitude (though hopefully I am instead!). The school changed his timetable to include a lot more Chinese instruction, which I’m not sure was particularly helpful in itself, but it meant that he was spending a lot less time in class with nothing to do. Meanwhile, my son and I agreed that he would join in with those things where he had some understanding of what was going on, such as maths and music, and if he did this he’d get a reward at the end of the day. This resulted in a definite improvement in his attitude to school, some actual schoolwork happening and more encouragement and reinforcement of his good behaviour from his teacher. I think what he really needed was identifiable goals that could be achieved each day, and to a large extent he’s met those goals.
However, as I said we aren’t out of the woods yet. Yesterday I had a meeting with his two Chinese teachers to discuss where to go from here. They reported that there were still some classes my son wasn’t attending, and I got the impression from both of them that they felt the Chinese teaching sessions they had with him were unproductive. One of them said that he can’t concentrate for more than ten minutes, while the other one had been flying a kite with him for one session with her (which I actually thought was fine except for the fact that she was probably trying to talk to him in broken English I think). She was saying that she’s too busy to be teaching him very much. Everyone seemed to think it was time for another change of timetable. As we suspected this was coming, my friend at the school suggested we talked to the grade 1 teacher to see if my son could attend her class for the sessions when she begins teaching characters in November. She was fine with this, so at the meeting we agreed a new timetable, which is all the non-Chinese language and non-English classes in grade 3, the grade 1 Chinese classes, grade 6 English for two sessions a week, and two sessions where I come in and work with him on English curriculum things (this is because there’s Chinese in his grade 3 class at this time and nowhere else for him to go).
Edited to add: the idea behind this timetable is that the grade 3 Chinese language is too hard for him while the grade 3 English is too easy. Also, some time spent with younger children speaking simpler Chinese and learning simple characters is going to be beneficial for his Chinese acquisition.
Of course, one of the problems has been a constantly changing timetable so I hope we can stick to this one now for the rest of the year. The school’s main problem with him is his habit of disappearing to the library when there’s something he doesn’t fancy doing. Frankly I find it bizarre that everyone objects to this behaviour but no one attempts to stop him doing it. At the meeting I told them he would never do this in the UK and he knows it isn’t allowed (but does it anyway because he gets away with it) but I don’t think they believed me! Anyway, I’ve agreed to come into school all day for the next couple of weeks to make sure he attends all his classes. I’m also going to be helping out at the school with some kind of English testing and I think that will improve the situation too. I take your point, NicTw+4, that you kind of need to prove you’re serious about something by your actions and not just saying something to save face. I said I’d come into school at the meeting yesterday but I think they were mildly surprised when I actually turned up today. (Maybe my excessive presence will be objected to after a while haha but never mind!)
Another thing I’ve just started this week is a child-exchange arrangement with a friend at the school. I have her kids for a couple of hours a week and she has my son in return on another day. When her children are with me they have an English-speaking playtime, with some reading etc., when my friend has my son she’s going to stick to Mandarin only, help him with his homework, and maybe begin to teach him some characters. He’ll also play with her boys. We just started this arrangement today and it went well (I had her boys) until unfortunately my son was bitten by a stray dog and we all ended up at Wanfang hospital! A bit of an inauspicious start.
I’m glad to hear that the summer playschemes are fun as I plan on doing this next summer with my son, although we’ll also have to squeeze in a trip to the UK at some point, too. I don’t want to overwhelm him, but if there’s a lot of playing in these schemes then I think he’ll enjoy them, at least more than being stuck with boring me all day. As we plan on being here a few years, and as he has started in grade 3, I hope to gradually bring him up to speed with the other children in Chinese over the next few years, so he’ll definitely need to at least maintain his level of learning over the summer, if not raise it.
That’s where we are now anyway. I’m grateful for your post NicTw+4, as it’s good to hear success stories to keep me chugging along on this long road and I’ve taken on board all of the details that I haven’t had time to respond to here.
By the way, I’m trying to create more opportunities for my son to get involved with other children outside of school and he’s very keen on learning karate, so if anyone knows of a karate club around the Wanlong area I’d be very grateful to hear of it.
You might want to try the Taipei City Wen Shan Sports Center.
The address is:
No. 222 Xinglong Rd. Section 3, Wenshan District Taipei City
文山區興隆路三段222號
Here’s a [urlhttp://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=%E6%96%87%E5%B1%B1%E5%8D%80%E8%88%88%E9%9A%86%E8%B7%AF%E4%B8%89%E6%AE%B5222%E8%99%9F&aq=&sll=23.69781,120.960515&sspn=12.23258,19.753418&vpsrc=6&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=No.+222,+Section+3,+X%C4%ABngl%C3%B3ng+Rd,+Wunshan+District,+Taipei+City,+Taiwan+116&ll=24.997484,121.559333&spn=0.005922,0.009645&t=m&z=17]map[/url].
They have Taekwondo classes for kids on Sat. (G613, 1pm to 1:55pm) and Sunday (G714B, 2pm to 2:55pm). Nine hours of instructions is NT$1350.
Here are the details in Chinese.
NEW~兒童跆拳體適能班
1200
1400-1455
柯敬偉
NEW~兒童跆拳體適能班
1350
1300-1355
柯敬偉
9)
Thanks Feiren, I’ll check that out.
Thanks for the update, it’s great to share tips & trieds & to hear how it’s panning out. It sounds like you’re on a roll! It does take time for both kids & school to find but works but my experience is that it does come together eventually, thankfully Nice that the school is so flexible & is willing to get him work that’s at his level. I really like the idea of letting the kids do a higher level of English, gotta see if that can work for my guys as that would really boost their enjoyment & learning. Best wishes for happy progress!
Just thought I’d share a little here of what my son and I talked about this weekend, and my thoughts.
I’ve said here that I’m teaching English in the elementary school where my son is studying. My own accounts of frustration as an employee aside, the school is well thought of, and my son is doing very well here. Especially considering that when he began here in January (after spending six months in a “bi-lingual” private school), he still spoke almost no Mandarin, and could only read or write Bo Po Mo Fo. He is now a straight A student.
I was at a Dr.'s appointment this weekend and observed my son and nurse talking to one another. Usually, my son still prefers that I do the talking, but he was talking with this nurse quite a lot. Perhaps she was extra pretty? Haha. But whatever the reason, I hadn’t realized just how good his Mandarin skills have become because he doesn’t usually like to do the, “you’re so cute, what grade are you in,” spiel.
I was very impressed with him, indeed. He understood very nearly everything said to him, and he told her that he was also studying Taiwanese. I knew that, but had forgotten it because he never talks about it. Later, when I asked him about it, he said that he can’t really speak any Taiwanese because, for the most part, that teacher just ignores him because he’s an American.
This is really irritating to me. First of all, though my son is American, he’s also quite fully Taiwanese! Secondly, my son is indeed very smart, and very capable, and he WANTS to learn and be included with his peers.
But his Taiwanese family isn’t a part of his life, so his American mom is all he’s got. At times like these, I begin to feel like a liability to him. And that’s just crazy, because of course it is his ignorant teacher who is the liability.
Anyway, I believe I can take this up with the school, and with his teacher, but I wonder if it’s worth the effort? For me, any language acquisition is a marvelous thing. It aids in brain development, problem solving and critical thinking skills, linguistic and cultural understanding, even math skills are aided by understanding other grammars. But practically, he’ll never really need Taiwanese. He’ll always be able to use Mandarin here, or on the main land.
Also, it’s not likely I’ll be at this school next year; for several reasons, plus we both are feeling like maybe it’s time to go “home” again.
I guess what I want to say here is that it can be such an up-hill battle. My son is Taiwanese. He should be at home here. But he’s treated differently and feels it keenly. I’m teaching at the school. I should have known about this months ago, but I didn’t. In fact, I avoid my son’s classroom as much as possible when other kids are there because I’m very aware that the more he’s seen with me, the more different his peers perceive him to be.
So, just be encouraged. My son and I should have this better than anyone else, but still we find lots of hard spots with public education here. Don’t give up. You kid needs you to continue to fight the fight.
hc, I can believe his stupid teacher said that. Some people are pigs!
Have you thought about looking around for where the local old people gather and drink tea? If he’s up for it, ask him if he’d want to be their errand boy an afternoon or two a week. Old people love having kids around, and they’ll appreciate the help (he’ll mostly be helping them make tea, rinse cups maybe, and eat all the fruit they bring everyday 
and probably end up ‘helping’ them play chess). They’ll teach him better Taiwanese than that teacher ever could, and he’d learn a LOT about Taiwanese culture, customs and local history - things that his family should be teaching him but aren’t, and things that these old people should be teaching their grandkids but can’t.
My SO has pretty fond memories of sitting with the oldies in his neighbourhood helping them make tea from when he was a kid, and he makes very good tea now because of it 
You’d need an introduction though. And an excuse like ‘he wants to learn about Taiwanese culture and how to make tea’, which they’d probably think is pretty neat.
I think tsukinodeynatsu’s suggestion is great. I think you should make a similar appeal to the teacher–i.e. that you feel that it is important that he learn Taiwanese so that he can connect with his Dad’s family and that since his Mandarin isn’t that good, could you dear teacher make a special effort to give him extra attention. Cue to handing over gift of Fenglisu or whatever.
Many parents of non-MInnan background complain about their kids getting ignored in Taiwanese class, mainly because they can’t speak Taiwanese as well as the kids who hear at home. And a lot of Taiwanese teachers feel that kids from non-Minnan backgrounds are not motivated to learn because they have already internalized the message that ‘Taiwanese isn’t important.’ Your son may be understandably interpreting this complex situation as one where he is ignored ‘because he is American’. Most Taiwanese teachers feel they are fighting an uphill battle to preserve a language and culture but they are second-class citizens in the educational establishment. Your interest and your son’s success would be a valuable affirmation of their efforts.
I can’t believe it’s six weeks since I last posted on this thread. I’ve been so busy spending all day at my son’s school that the time’s flown.
Thanks, Housecat, for your thoughtful post. I was interested to hear that your son hadn’t acquired much Mandarin at the bilingual school you previously taught at, as this had been an option for us too and your story makes me feel more confident we made the right decision about sending our son to a local school. I hope you’ve managed to resolve the situation in your son’s Taiwanese sessions. Just on Friday it was suggested to me that my son does PE instead of Taiwanese and I agreed, but the difference with us is that he isn’t Taiwanese and while it might be an interesting language to learn, I feel he has enough on his plate at the moment. Also, he probably won’t live here long term. But the concern about your child being separated and made to feel different is a serious one.
So much has happened in the last few weeks that I’m going to have to cherry pick the main points for this post. I spent about four weeks staying at school while my son was in lessons, just sitting in the library (I got a lot of Chinese studying done). Initially I could see from what was going on that he’d been spending a lot of time there. Not only during classes he should have been attending but also any free time he had at break. He’d been playing computer games at other times during the day too. Also, during class time, many times when I looked in he’d be sitting there reading Harry Potter. Needless to say I stopped all of this and tried to get him to join in classes. Things did improve quite a lot. He couldn’t leave classes now because I was there and he couldn’t read during classes because I made sure he didn’t have a book. He objected a little but only weakly. He knew this wasn’t a good way forward.
However, things still weren’t working well. He wasn’t really a part of the class group as far as I could see, and while he would now do things during class time that were a little more productive, I didn’t feel that he could really thrive where he was. (I’m struggling a little to relate this because there is more to this than I can say here.) In short, I requested that he be moved to a grade 2 class. His very young age for the class year and the fact that the Chinese would be easier was my reasoning for this, and luckily the school agreed.
He’s now been in grade 2 for two weeks and things are going much, much better. I’ve been sitting in on this class to help him out for the lessons where there is a lot of instruction, such as Chinese, and so I can see what happens in close detail. He’s been warmly included into the class group and the teacher makes a lot of effort to make sure he’s working along with his classmates. He sits next to a really sweet and kind little girl who helps him with using the right book and being on the right page etc. While a few children speak a little English no one is speaking lots of English to him (in his previous class a boy told me he was glad my son was in his class because now he could practise his English a lot :neutral: ). Most important of all, and something that brought a tear to my eye the first time it happened, he rushes off to play with the other children at every break time.
Generally, grade 2 is better because there are fewer of the more serious classes. The children sit in groups rather than rows, and there are a lot more activities that are hands-on. Even when the subject is quite serious, the teacher is very good and does things to make it more interactive for the children. So for example they’ll do things like Chinese character Bingo, and when they were studying heavy and light in maths she took them out to play on the see-saws. So the general teaching style means things are more accessible for my son. He completes the same work as the other children (of course there’s still a lot he can’t do but with my help he always makes an effort) and is treated as part of the group. He is much more at home in this class and much happier.
Meanwhile, whether this is due to the move in classes or not I don’t know, but his Mandarin has started to develop. On Friday there was a substitute teacher and he went over to show her his contact book. I could see they were talking, and when he came back he said proudly, ‘I had to speak to her in Chinese and I managed it!’ His main teacher has reported him saying the odd thing too. This is more than I hoped for at this stage so I’m really pleased and feeling just slightly less guilty. He also does Taikwondo and goes to soccer practice outside of school so probably this has helped.
Of course, there is still lots to do. Now that he attends grade 2 full time he isn’t learning the grade 1 characters in school any more, so I’m continuing with teaching him those. He also has a couple of hours private tuition a week where at the moment he’s learning bopomofo but will go on to general literacy in time. We plan on keeping him in local education to the end of Elementary school, so while this means he has quite a while to catch up, it also means he’ll need to achieve quite a high level of literacy if he’s going to do the same work as his peers. Consequently, he’s going to have to go a little faster than his classmates for a while yet. Luckily, because grade 2 only has one long day a week, he has a fair amount of free time, and we can still fit in lots of bike rides and visits to interesting places.
So that’s where we are at the moment. I think I finally feel happy with the way things are going and am optimistic about the future. One of our main reasons for coming here was so that our son could learn another language and live within a completely different culture. The signs are that we can achieve that.
Thanks, Petricor, for the update. I’m very happy to hear that you’ve been pro-active and creative in coming up with solutions for your son. It sounds like things are starting to turn a good corner for him.
My son and I have just completed a move back down south. I won’t go into everything, but in the last year I’ve had lots of health things come up and I was worn out. I needed the support of friends I have here. Well, it was either move here, or return “home.” I chose eventually chose to stay in Taiwan. Where I was in Chang Hua, I knew almost no one, but here I have plenty of friends and support.
This meant a new change of school for my son, so I was a bit nervous. The school he’s now attending is much smaller, and so far the teachers have been spectacular! He’s able to keep up with his work, he has friends in school, and in the neighborhood here, and is adjusting very well.
The teachers didn’t have any strange reaction to me as a foreign parent, as there are several others here. There are also several other mixed children here, so there is always someone about who can speak English. The school has been supportive and helpful in every way so far, even calling me to check that things are going well, and to ask me my thoughts or if I have any questions about anything.
Also, I work too far away from school to get there in time to pick him up in the afternoons, so he’s now going to anchinban. I had not wanted this for him before, but the in-school anchingban is pretty impressive. It is truly for helping with homework, or areas where the kids need extra help, and kids are also given a good amount of time to run and play and enjoy themselves. It is NOT cram school, and is NOT test prep.
My son has had a private tutor for homework and language help for the last 10 months, but is now doing just fine without this. I don’t know that he could have handled the all Chinese anchinban environment without that prep time, but he’s really fine now and learning more Chinese by the day. I’m very proud of him, and very pleased with this new school.
I do get the feeling that the smaller schools often end up to have a much better learning and growing environment all around.
Anyway, in sum, this has turned out to be a good move for us so far. I’ve taken a massive pay cut, but it’s paying off a great deal in many other ways. I’m feeling less stress, and my son is much happier so far.
*PS, I did find a way to take Tsuki’s suggestion. The breakfast store ladies I like so much were more than pleased to have such a cute little helper for an hour or two now and then! He had a blast, and they did too! Thanks Tsu, it was a agreat idea! I will really miss those women!
Hi Housecat
I’m glad that after such a difficult year things are working out for you. It sounds like you’ve both been put through the mill but have ended up at a place that meets your needs well. I agree that the smaller schools seem to deal better with children from different backgrounds and with different needs. The Taiwanese parents at my son’s school have told me they chose that school or transferred their children there for specifically that reason, and after spending a lot of time there I can say with some certainty that they do a good job with children who wouldn’t have thrived in a large, standard school.
I wouldn’t feel bad about your son going to anchinban (not that you do but I agree it’s a difficult decision to make). I think the problem is that after school care/teaching has a bad reputation here, understandably in many cases. But where the balance is right it’s preferable to going home to an apartment. If they can get their homework done in the afternoons it means their evenings are free to relax and they can go to bed at a reasonable time. And they’re with other children, which wouldn’t be the case otherwise as the playgrounds here are empty in the afternoons. I think I’ll be asking if my son can stay at school until 4 o’clock one or two afternoons a week next semester, so that he has more opportunities to be with his classmates. I’ve seen the afternoon sessions at his school and they’re very relaxed, with the children milling around and getting on with whatever they need/want to do.
Hello everyone!
I didn’t find this thread until today. I started another thread seeking advice on moving my family with 2 older kids to Taiwan in 2010. I received many comments which were negative to bring older kids to Taiwan as it will not be possible for the kids to cope with the Chinese language. So I moved to Vietnam in 2011 instead. My kids have been doing well in Vietnam since then as they attended bilingual school, picked up the language quite well. They are now 10 and 12 and in grade 5th and 7th respectively. Until recently, I had an offer to relocate to Taiwan and I had returned to my forum post and continued to find out very helpful information and experience from expat community, specially from Petrichor, asianmom, AmoyMama and many others which I am very thankful. I found the prospect for my kids are very tough.
However, after I read this thread today, I think I have in fact to ask another question. I am here to ask you for your advice and experience how to help older kids to cope with and get along with (gradually of course) studying in Taiwan schools, be it local or bilingual. They will be in Taiwan so they will be enrolled in a school by next September. The question now is: how will I help my children in living and schooling in Taiwan? This is only to deal with the Chinese language issue as both of my kids are doing very well in their current classes in Vietnam. And I think I do have part of the answer from the experience of Petrichor, Asiababy, Housecat, Amoymama, Feiren, etc (and thank you for replying me in the other thread)… and I really like the story of NicTw+4. I also like the story in NY Times that you provided. When I learn about these stories, I don’t think I will be in the worst situation in the world. After all, I guess that my kids got used to changing living and schooling environment since they were 2 and 4.
Now allow me to discuss some of your cases in trying to have more insights and then figure out solution for my family. In Petrichor’s case, your son was only 8 in 2011, when he started grade 3 in Taiwan and I understand that he refused to get help from other and his teachers did have problem with him finally and more importantly he didn’t tell you all by himself. In my case, I think things are quite different. Both of my kids always share the problems and issues they face in school every time I pick them up. I drove them to and picked them up from school everyday. Then they received my western cultured advice. At home, they discussed the matters with their mom in Vietnamese and received a another pack of resolution from Vietnamese perspective. They then decided how to respond to school’s issues that they thought appropriate for that specific issue and told us, normally me the next morning when we were on the way to school. You know, issues include bullying which is the most intolerable to us. That’s the reason I did ask about bullying in my other thread. The other issues are direct conversation to teachers when they disagreed with the teachers’ points of view. This is you know not the culture in Vietnam. Our parents-children daily interaction have helped us to solve many problems and issues in my kids schooling in Vietnam. Since I know that culture here and in Taiwan came from the same root in China with the later is of a more extreme manner, I am concerned if Taiwanese teachers would in any way “harm” my kids.
Now they are much older and believe it, it is good and bad. The bad thing you all see clearly that it is almost impossible for them to be fluent in Chinese to study 6th and 8th grade in a local school. But the good thing is they do have their own thinking. When I informed them about 3 months ago of my near decision to move to Taiwan, they go online checking information about life and schools in Taiwan. They started to ask me questions about Taiwan and Taiwanese now and then. FYI, I took my kids to Taiwan and stayed for a couple of months when I was a visiting scholar 5 years ago. My son said he had some memory about country and people. My daughter had a vague memory though as she was only 5. And finally 3 weeks ago, they decided they might like Taiwan, and they told me they did understand the “situation” might be very tough for all of us. I am feeling so blessed to have elder kids who start to share parents’ concerns. As per posters’ suggestion, they started Chinese class 2 weeks ago at home. We are lucky enough to find a certified teacher from Taiwan, not China so the Chinese they are going to learn is the one spoken and written in Taiwan. In the class, the teacher also produced lots of flashcards which she explained to help boost kids’ willingness and enthusiasm to learn, and I can see this method was mentioned in the posts. After 2 classes, my 2 kids can memorize 1 to 10 and another 10 words in traditional Chinese. I will ask the teacher next time if she’s going to teach them “bopomofo” as you mentioned. I think it will definitely help the kids later on in Taiwan.
Hence, my strategy for my kids next year will be bilingual schools, Chinese tutoring, networking with families in the area who share the same traits so we might have extra help, and home schooling. I hope I will have enough time and devote it to ensure my kids will not live in hell as some posters have suggested in this and other threads.
Will it work everybody? Thank you very much for your time to read this long and humble post.
Hi LAGuy
You’re a good parent to take such care over your children’s welfare and education.
It’s difficult to answer your general question of whether your intended strategies will work, not only because there are so many variables involved but also because it depends on what your goals are. What does ‘work’ mean? Do you want your children to become literate and fluent in Chinese? Do you want them to go to university here, or back in the US, or you don’t mind? Do you want them to participate fully in all the schoolwork, or score highly in tests, or are you content to have them miss certain things out? I noticed, for example in my post from two years ago that my son was missing Taiwanese lessons and I didn’t mind. He now attends them and consequently knows some Taiwanese, but it doesn’t matter to me at all whether he becomes proficient in it. It would be nice but he isn’t Taiwanese and doesn’t need to be able to speak it, so I’m content to let that slide. But it’s very important to me that he’s up to scratch in maths and science because he won’t have time to catch up on things he’s missed when he returns to British education.
I mentioned the many variables that will influence your children’s education. In my experience Taiwanese education is extremely variable. Two teachers in the same grade at the same school can have nearly opposing attitudes and teaching methods, and you really don’t know until the child is in the class what their teacher is like because all the teachers will naturally say whatever is expected of them. I have friends who have pulled their children out of formal education entirely due to their child’s bad experiences, while on the other hand my son’s teacher is lovely and very progressive and open-minded. Finding her was pure luck (I say that but she did actually sit and chat with me for an hour when I first approached the school, which was a good indication of her willingness to have a foreign child in her classroom). Corporal punishment has been banned in Taiwanese schooling for several years, but some teachers can still rule with a rod of iron, as the saying goes. I haven’t heard of out and out bullying by other children, but it may take some time before your children are accepted as part of the class. Being part of the class ‘team’ is an important aspect of Taiwanese schooling. The children are encouraged to think of themselves as a group and to look out for each other, but Taiwan is quite monocultural and children do see children of other or mixed races as different from themselves - not necessarily in a bad way, but still different. For example, they and their teacher might have the attitude that it’s simply impossible for your children to learn Chinese.
One phenomenon I’ve encountered both personally and anecdotally from friends and reading around, is the teacher’s willingness to give up on a child who isn’t getting the scores or conforming to the norm. Nothing will be mentioned to the parent, but the child is just kind of left to do whatever they like. For example, referring again to my previous post, my son’s first teacher would allow him to just walk out of the classroom whenever he felt like it. When I asked her whether she’d told him he can’t do that she said she had the rest of the class to deal with. So she wasn’t even challenging his behaviour. It was simply too much trouble for her and she didn’t see him as her responsibility. By the time we left her class, about a quarter of the class had already been removed by their parents, so she was just exceptionally bad. It wasn’t particularly because my son was foreign, although that certainly didn’t help.
It’s great that your children are so open and willing to chat with you about their feelings and experiences and I’m sure that will go a long way to ensuring they get on well when they make the transition to Taiwan. One thing that helped us was enrolling our son in Taekwondo classes, where the Chinese is repetitive and straightforward, and he could just copy the other kids if he didn’t understand. Extra-curricular activities, not necessarily at the school, help children pick up Chinese in a less presssured environment than the classroom and they have fun too. Doing lots of other fun activities together in our free time also helped us sell Taiwan to our son as a great place to live. I think with the kind of care you’re taking your children will grow to love living here.
[quote=“Petrichor”]Hi LAGuy
You’re a good parent to take such care over your children’s welfare and education.
It’s difficult to answer your general question of whether your intended strategies will work, not only because there are so many variables involved but also because it depends on what your goals are. What does ‘work’ mean? Do you want your children to become literate and fluent in Chinese? Do you want them to go to university here, or back in the US, or you don’t mind? Do you want them to participate fully in all the schoolwork, or score highly in tests, or are you content to have them miss certain things out? I noticed, for example in my post from two years ago that my son was missing Taiwanese lessons and I didn’t mind. He now attends them and consequently knows some Taiwanese, but it doesn’t matter to me at all whether he becomes proficient in it. It would be nice but he isn’t Taiwanese and doesn’t need to be able to speak it, so I’m content to let that slide. But it’s very important to me that he’s up to scratch in maths and science because he won’t have time to catch up on things he’s missed when he returns to British education.[/quote]
Thank you Petrichor, you are absolutely right. Right now, I can’t predict exact number of years we will stay in Taiwan. There are so many variables that will jeopardize all known constants. Yes, I do want my kids to be fluent and literate in Chinese but under a natural course. If they could not make it for whatsoever natural reason, I trust that I would – together with them – find an acceptable alternative. I wouldn’t mind if they choose to study their undergraduate in Taiwan later on, and if they really can. You know, in my faith they will live their life not mine so they should decide on their own path. We parent will only help with guiding and fine tuning, if needed. I also agree with you that core subjects like math or science have to be maintained at regular level and I know my kids can do that. As I said in my last post, I really think it is only the matter of the Chinese language itself, not anything else, given the adaptability of my kids. If they do get in trouble with core subjects due to Chinese barrier, we will at least be able to resort to home schooling or online schooling right? At the same time, I will make sure they will have good SAT score if they decide to study in the US. Perhaps, I will bring textbook and other materials of middle and high school just in case.
From what you wrote, I conclude that “luck” is a huge variable factor that attributes my kids’ successful plantation in a Taiwanese school. If one is lucky enough to walk in a school and greeted by a teacher who is so willing to help the odd kid by whatever means he could, then it will be much easier for the kid to acquire whatever is needed to comprehend the Chinese language and in faster and nicer manner compared to unlucky ones. In such a case, I would also think that the school’s structure and system must support that teacher’s effort in doing odd things out for the foreign kids. From the very little knowledge of Chinese culture that I know, the teacher’s effort will wear out pretty soon if he/she doesn’t get support of school. Therefore, I will eliminate “luck” factor in my formulation as I won’t be able to calculate it anyway. As for being part of the class team, I think communication to local classmates is crucial for my kids and I know they can handle that based upon their experience in Vietnam. I’m confident I can help them as I heard Taiwanese kids are civilized in general.
It seems that we are doing similar things in Vietnam. My kids join many clubs with local kids: soccer, ping pong, badminton, and even baseball. This is very helpful for networking and they learn a lot of Vietnamese. We also travel to many parts of the country whenever possible. Therefore I hope we can continue this lifestyle and it will help my kids in Taiwan as long as I have enough free time as I do now in Vietnam.
I hope that what I share would help you to give me some judgment base on your own experience of Taiwan life. Thank you.
LAGuy, I’m not sure but are you asking me for my opinion on how well your children will do when they come to live here? I don’t think it’s easy to make such a prediction. I think you’re doing all you can now and will continue to do all you can to make it a success. We’ve found it a positive and enriching experience overall to be sure.