Is Mandarin taught in your home?

Taiwan Parenting
1

Hello,

I’m new here and I’m wondering if any of you teach Mandarin to your kids at home (either you or your SO) – and if you do, whether you follow any sort of curriculum.

I’m in Canada and I would like to home school my son (who’s turning 4 soon) in Mandarin. Right now, it’s done in a fairly ad hoc fashion and he can read about 100 characters. However, I would prefer to follow some sort of standard curriculum if possible. I haven’t had much luck (yet) in getting any help from my local Taipei Economic & Cultural Office here nor have I had any luck getting answers from the Overseas Compatriot Affairs Commission (Huaqiao Office).

In searching on the web, I did notice that Nan-I (www.nani.com.tw) seem to sell standard texts for Mandarin ranging from Grade 1 and beyond. But I don’t seem to be able to order from them directly from the web site. And what about kindergarten material? Does anyone know of any publishers that produce pre-school or kindergarten material for learning Mandarin?

Stan

2

There are some good materials produced by the Tongyong Pinyin gang. They also include bpmf and hanyu pinyin. I’ve got them at home so I’ll look up the details later if you’re interested. These are for non-native speakers (I guess your kid speaks natively?), but they are kind of fun. Most of the Taiwan elementary school stuff is really mindless, to be avoided if possible.

3

Details regarding the “Tongyong Pinyin” gang would be greatly appreciated.

As for my son, he is a semi native speaker as his primary spoken language is Cantonese. I’m planning to teach him bpmf instead of pinyin as I’ve also started phonics with him and don’t want to completely confuse the poor kid. Bpmf will totally avoid that scenario.

As for Taiwanese elementary texts, I have a grade 5 Mandarin text book from Taiwan (published about 25 years ago) that I somehow acquired. The contents seem OK as each chapter presents a short story and at the end of each story are sections for new vocabulary and questions regarding reading comprehension. Perhaps your experience is different?

4

forget teaching it, how can you get away from it? :wink:

5

TG, OP is not in Taiwan, he’s in Canada and his son speaks Cantonese and English.

So OP you’re planning to teach him to speak Mandarin, and to write. Those Tongyon books would be good… only problem is I can’t seem to track them down at the moment. I did a quick web search, but nothing came up… I’ll do another house search, because I would like to find them!

Why teach him with ㄅㄆㄇㄈ? Most threads on here suggest that HYPY is streets better… and surely English phonics and HYPY would reinforce each other? There’s only a handful of letters that represent a markedly different sound in English spelling and Pinyin: and what would you do if you were teaching him French?

Having said that, my advice would be stick to one writing system at first, and make it English. He’s very young, wouldn’t it be better to take him to the park and kick a ball around, or do Lego, talking to him in Mandarin all the while?

Another question that’s bugging me is this: If, as I presume, his mother speaks Cantonese to him and you English (am I right?) then why are you so bent on him learning Mandarin? Why can’t you just teach him written Chinese, at an appropriate age, however they do it in Hong Kong?

(Oh the elementary school materials I described as mindless are 1st grade, not 5th grade. first page: 花開了. 小白花開了. 小紅花開了. 你看! 小花一天一天的開了. Don’t know what that 的 is all about, but I suppose it must be right. Then the students get to copy out all of these characters over and over again. There is no distinction between comprehension and production: all characters encountered must be memorized.)

6

My son is 5.6 years, and my daughter 1.8 years. My son teaches me and my daughter his best Chinese. While his tones seem a little bit off, he sure knows how to belt it out…!

And why not?
Natural speak, is the best, no?

7

Hi smithsgj,

Thanks in advance for all your effort! I really appreciate it, even if you don’t end up finding those books.

Let me first answer the question that’s been bugging you. I’m teaching him Mandarin because that’s my mother tongue. My son’s primary language is Cantonese and his secondary language is Mandarin. He cannot function in English despite having spent two years in an English Montessori school. His mom speaks Cantonese 100% of the time and I speak Mandarin to him 75% of the time, the other 25% being Cantonese. He gets pretty close to 0% English in the home although bedtime stories are now mostly English.

Because of his lack of ability in English, I don’t want to skew his pronounciation in either language by using a single alphabet to represent two languages. Interestingly enough, as I signed him up for a Mandarin summer camp today, the person doing the registration there said that “research” (whatever research that is) shows that bpfm is better for teaching Chinese writing if starting at a young age. Given that my son is starting with a blank canvas, I think using two distinct alphabets will be less confusing. Once he has a good grasp of bpmf and English, learning HYPY will be quite easy. Certainly, this does not mean one system is better than the other, just that in this instance, I think bpmf is more suitable for him. Personally, I type using bpmf and I find it faster than HYPY as it takes less keystrokes on average.

French, as far as I know, isn’t taught phonetically in school. And I’m not even remotely qualified to teach him myself. I think the strategy at school is to get the kids to be conversationally comfortable with French before introducing written words. But since my son has yet to be proficient in English, he has been barred from French class. :frowning:

My main focus isn’t to teach him to speak Mandarin per se, but rather to teach him to read in Chinese. Once he has mastered reading a certain passage in Mandarin, it’s often quite trivial for him to learn the Cantonese pronounciation as he’s more comfortable in that language.

On a side note, I’ve gone through the Taiwan’s Education Ministry’s web site and came across a document which describes the thinking that goes behind the “white/red flowers blooming”. In fact, they use that very example. But I didn’t read the whole article…too boring. However, according to this web site (nani.com.tw/big5/content/200 … nt_518.htm), the 的 is omitted in 小花一天一天的開了. I think if a “de5” is needed before the 開, it should be 地 and not 的. But what do I know, I only have a grade 3 education.

Stan

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You sure Mandarin is your native language Stan, cause you seem to type English with less mistakes than I do, and I know it’s my first language. Cudos on your English. Just had to pipe up and say it. :slight_smile:

9

Well Said.
Stan, have you tried what the rest of us do, audio-visual, cue-response kind of deal?
Unless you want to pressure your child into the brain game (& all that that entails), find out the stories he likes. Read with Him. Watch The Movie. Discuss With Him.
And above all, don’t worry too much.
Children have an admirable way of figuring it all out.

Take care,
Best of luck,
Ginger

10

You should save your cudos for someone more deserving, QuincyQ, as my English comes from having lived in Canada for just a year shy of a quarter century. Although Mandarin is my native language, it’s not my most proficient. It probably ranks third, closely behind Cantonese, all due to a lack of regular usage and proper schooling.

GingerMan, what do you mean by “brain game”? Do you mean rote learning? I have ordered a few children’s books in Chinese from online sources but they are too advanced for someone his age. It’s hard to determine these things online without being able to thumb through the pages. The readily available material here is quite limited, even in Toronto where reportedly 1 in 6 residents are of Chinese decent and where there are even numerous Chinese language Montessori schools. (I don’t live in Toronto, by the way.) I also have Chinese versions of Finding Nemo and Lion King but the dialogue is pretty fast. What I really need is a Chinese equivalent of Sesame Street.

You can call me paranoid but I desperately want to avoid a common situation where kids of immigrants cannot function even minimally in their parents’ language. Sometimes, the parents just give up and everyone speaks English at home (except between the parents). But mostly, I find, the parents speak their own language to the kids and the kids reply in English. The households where the kids do maintain a certain level of fluency in their parents’ language typically have a family member who do not understand and cannot speak English at all (like a grandparent or the stay-at-home-mom). In those situations, the kids are really forced to use the language in order to communicate.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I have the impression that this is not a common problem for ex-pats living in Taiwan.

11

http://www.benesse.com.tw/

This co. has a series of DVD/VCD and books for very young children. It is on subscription. I know some families use this successfully.

I can’t find the page with the subscription option, they have a series for preschoolers where you get a DVD and book sent to you every month. There was a sample you can see online. You might have to look around the site to find it.

12

sjcma said:

I have to admit, this is a small concern of mine. Although with the languages reversed. I am from Canada and so speak English to my daughter. We live in Taiwan. I’m afraid that when she does begin speaking (hasn’t yet) she’ll respond to my English with Chinese. My listening comprehension is pretty good, so I’ll probably understand most of what she says. Guess when she does begin to speak Mandarin I’ll just have to play dumb and make her repeat herself in English.

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asiababy – Thanks for the link. The web site has some really great material and there’s a good chance I may order from them. The downside is that the shipping cost to Canada effectively doubles the price of the subscription. But oh well…

QuincyQ – Can I assume that your wife is a native of Taiwan? If so, is her native tongue Mandarin or Taiwanese? If it is Mandarin, I think it’s imperative that your wife speaks to your daughter in English for the majority of the time if you wish your daughter to maintain a good level of fluency in English. This is best course of action, in my opinion, over the long time but may cause a problem in the short term. We don’t speak English to our son and he has yet to pick up the language via osmosis through two years at an English Montessori school. He’s entering junior kindergarten in September and we’re concerned that he will not be able to follow the lessons or make friends. We’re so worried, in fact, that we’ve acquired outside help to assist him in becoming at least minimally functional before the school year starts again. He’s been tested to be below the 0.1 percentile in English comprehension for his age. Of course, I have no doubt that he will be just fine over the long term.

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Won’t that just create the same problem you are having ;only in reverse with the Mandarin?

You say your son has failed to pick up English, but I wonder how his listening comprehension is? I guess he’s ok with that?..and will speak when he’s ready.
At only 4 years old I’d give him a little time and bet he’ll soon be speaking English better than his Mandarin and Cantonese.

My son is 2.3 years old. I insist his mother speakes Mandarin so that he will be able to move right along in school here in Taiwan. I speak English to him and to my wife.
His Mandarin conversation is better but his English vocabulary is stronger then Mandarin…maybe because I read to him more than his mother does.
I know as long as we live here his Mandarin will probably always be stronger and I can only do my best to keep the English up to a certain level on my own.

15

i will echo hongda that reading/speaking to your child as much as possible is key in this kind of situation. my first daughter acheived a quite good level of English from this, with me speaking to my wife primarily in Mandarin and my wife speaking to her in Taiwanese/some Mandarin. from what i have heard on here it seems though not every child will aquire languages to the same fluency in this situation though.

16

Won’t that just create the same problem you are having ;only in reverse with the Mandarin?

You say your son has failed to pick up English, but I wonder how his listening comprehension is? I guess he’s ok with that?..and will speak when he’s ready.
At only 4 years old I’d give him a little time and bet he’ll soon be speaking English better than his Mandarin and Cantonese.

[/quote]

Yes, that may create the same problem that I’m having. That’s why I wrote that although I think it is better in the long run, it may create short term problems. I wrote “may” because other non-English speaking kids in my son’s class has been able to pick it up at a much faster rate. When I talked to their parents, invariably, these kids watch a lot of television which is not the case with my son. If long term fluency is the goal, my opinion is that the short term pain is worth it. Of course, only you know what’s best for your child given your situation.

As for my son, his listening comprehension is not that great. When the teacher is reading a story during circle time, he does not understand the story. Despite this situation, we’re still keeping our household a relatively English free zone because soon enough, we’ll be wishing that he didn’t speak so much English at home. I know more than a few that were born in Canada but had to go through ESL in Grade 1 because their households spoke only Chinese (or varying dialects). But now, some cannot speak Chinese at all and more cannot write their own names.

Like many out there, we too are stumbling through this thing called parenthood. We can simply do our best and let the chips fall where they may.

17

sjcma, if you son can’t produce any English after 2 years in his Montessori school, there may be something wrong with the school. Do they give children time to play make-believe? Some teachers feel that giving students time to just play is wasting time, but it is just the opposite for a child learning a language from his/her peers. Children learn basic conversation best from friends. I teach ESL in the US and we have 5 year olds with zero English at least producing 2 word phrases spontaneouly after 3 months (phrases they hear over and over like ‘your turn’ or the perennial ‘stop it!’). Maybe your son will only speak English in the environment he mostly learned it from- with his classmates in school. You may need to ‘spy’ on him. I did have some kindergarten students who had good listening comprehension, but did not want to speak at all, even after a full year. This had more to do with their personality- they were ‘quiet’ in their home language as well. Later, they started spontaneously producing grammatically correct sentences. Here in the US my Chinese husband wanted me to speak only Mandarin at home to our children… The problem was when they started asking me complex questions like why the moon was different shapes, my mandarin wasn’t good enough- I was fumbling for words. So i decided to speak only English to them. When my husband comes home from work, he is usually too tired to speak in his broken English, so we mainly speak in Mandarin. From this my children have some very basic listening comprehension of Mandarin. My husband also speaks to them in Mandarin, but, again, very basic stuff like: ni jintian qu na li a? hao bu hao wan? mama you meiyou luan hua qian? That sort of stuff. Sometimes they understand daddy, but they juang sa when it suits them. My older daughter sometimes speaks a weird home language which is English, but with Chinese grammar. Thankfully, she doesn’t speak this way all the time. For ex, instead of saying ‘I don’t understand’ she’ll say ‘me no get’, or just ‘no get’. maybe when she starts test messaging, it’ll evolve to n gt. We go buy book now? instead of ‘Let’s go buy that book.’ It drives me nuts. Last thought: a play group with the majority of participants native speakers (and some adult facilitation) is the best way to develop language in young children. Aren’t there forumosa play groups?

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[quote=“sjcma”]I’m teaching him Mandarin because that’s my mother tongue. My son’s primary language is Cantonese and his secondary language is Mandarin. He cannot function in English despite having spent two years in an English Montessori school. His mom speaks Cantonese 100% of the time and I speak Mandarin to him 75% of the time, the other 25% being Cantonese. He gets pretty close to 0% English in the home although bedtime stories are now mostly English.

. . . I signed him up for a Mandarin summer camp today. . . since my son has yet to be proficient in English, he has been barred from French class. :frowning:

. . . My main focus isn’t to teach him to speak Mandarin per se, but rather to teach him to read in Chinese. Once he has mastered reading a certain passage in Mandarin, it’s often quite trivial for him to learn the Cantonese pronounciation as he’s more comfortable in that language.[/quote]

sjcma,

I think it’s quaint that you’re so set on teaching your child Mandarin, Cantonese, French, etc. But don’t you think it would make more sense to work on his English? After all, you live in Canada, not HK, Taiwan or China, and you admit yourself that his English skills are abysmal, you’re concerned he’ll have trouble making friends and understanding his teachers due to his almost completely non-existent English skills. Obviously, his Cantonese and Mandarin are quite good – better than mine. If I were you I’d start speaking a lot more English with him and buy him lots of English books, flashcards, movies and other games and media – not strictly academic stuff, but fun stuff in English to get him interested in the language so he can start making progress on what will eventually become the most important language for him – and ease up on all the other languages.

19

My kindergarten students often have immigrant parents who know no English at all, and the children learn just fine with some extra help from the ESL teacher. I wanted my children to learn Mandarin even though they live in the US for a couple of reasons: to communicate with their father better, reinforce pride in their heritage, learn the good side of Chinese culture (ie xiao sun fumu, etc), and know a ‘secret’ language we could speak in that the vast majority of people where we live don’t understand. I kind of gave up since what my children need are Mandarin speaking playmates and there are none around here. The Chinese kids might speak Mandarin at home with the older generation, but with siblings and Chinese-American friends they speak English. They can learn at 22 like I did if they have the interest.

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[quote=“asiababy”]http://www.benesse.com.tw/

This co. has a series of DVD/VCD and books for very young children. It is on subscription. I know some families use this successfully.
[/quote]

My wife orders that for our 2 year old son and he’s crazy about it. Every few months you also get some nice toy. Each DVD/book set will have sections on animals, manners , personal hygiene, chores etc… The books are really nice and have all sorts of activities like stickers, sliding things, velcro stickers and pop-outs.
We’ll definately subscribe to the version for next age group.
I think it’s a Japanese company but this is the Taiwan version.
This months flyer advertised an upcoming English series which I’m interested in trying.