I’ve never seen them make them write less than 5. Usually 10 times each, it may be more if the teacher rejects your hand writing and see your strokes are not correct. I don’t think anyone can learn chinese by repeating each words 2 times. Takes more than that. Maybe it became easier, idk. Wasn’t like that when I was a kid.
Aged 4 and 9? Accepted, the lad aged 9 will find it challenging.
In order to thrive kids will need to get used to/be a part of the culture. If not, then don’t come.
I’m talking about the older kid.
For me, I would never take them from even a stupid canadian system to Taiwan’s public school. It’s awful, I did not do well in it.
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It may largely depend on teachers. That is what my kid brings from school as homework. They may repeat more in class. Once they remember some sets of characters, learning new words and characters becomes easier.
Like I said, we don’t know how the kid will do in this system. Some kids did very well. I did not, it was miserable everyday. Some kids grow their minds differently.
You seem to have come through it OK.
I agree with you, it wouldn’t be a challenge I would subject my child to. However, kids are pretty resilient and it can be the making of them.
I left once my parents saw them going to the teacher’s every week for issues was going to be a problem. Not to mention the poor grades and daily hitting as punishment. They literally thought I had some mental issues and learning disability at school…but it’s called being a little boy. It’s not normal for boys to sit still and focus on something like that for hours. I had a extremely negative experience. I’m not the only one, but that’s not to say many kids do ok and even really well.
I also wouldn’t move to taiwan with the OPs situations, but Taiwanese elementary schools may not be as horrible as @Andrew0409 remembers/describes for many kids.
My daughter seems to be having a good time at elementary school here. I hope I’m not missing anything she may be hiding, but she seems very happy.
It will mean that I’ll be putting back any chance of retirement 5 or so years, but we hope to put her into Taipei European School when she hits 10.
People are just projecting their own experience. Elementary school has gotten significantly easier worldwide in recent years. But you would do well to prepare for the high school insanity.
Ha ha, reminds me of benders appartment in futurama: I, Roommate (Bender's Apartment Clip) S1E3 on Vimeo
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Idk why you guys would be worried about your children’s English. You are foreigners fgs.
Well that’s the amount of practice one needs to remember how to write a character. Isn’t it true that you can barely read/write Chinese? This is probably the reason.
I think it’s still manageable till 15. It does get really bad in high school, though I must say I probably wouldn’t enjoy American style high school either where everyone who doesn’t do sports or isn’t an edgy emo-kid or do drugs/smoke/drink or isn’t the queen bee would be bullied. #carrie
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Man it was something like that. I felt like a caged animal lol.
That reminds me of this:
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I mean I left as a kid and never read and wrote again pretty much so it’s hard imagine someone being able to regain much especially if you’re already limited in how much you can write as kid.
I’m not sure the ability to write Chinese characters by memory is really an issue for an adult functioning in any country these days, even a native Chinese speaker. Most things are written by computer or texting keyboard, and if you’re writing something that’s not, you would have the ability to look stuff up. People do it all the time. Reading is important, but reading isn’t nearly as memorization-heavy as writing (actually we teach reading to CSL students without any memorization these days but I digress).
There’s writing (by hand from memory: party trick stuff) and there’s writing (being able to formulate correct sentences and paragraphs and having a prose style that seems like an educated native speaker). The latter is built through reading, not through repetitive copying of characters.
But it’s true that repetitive copying is still a large part of Mandarin classes here (both for native speakers and L2 learners). And IMO the OP should consider carefully the mindset that gives a child, and what is valued for – and from – children of the age his are.
Disclaimer: I have no children, nor was I ever an elementary school student in Taiwan.
For the Gold Card idea for a visa – the OP is a salesman, right? I’m not sure that’s going to be a category they would embrace (though I have no idea). They do “review” applications and there has been a lot of back-and-forth on qualifications for some of the categories, though a fair number of people are getting cards. It might bear further investigation.
FWIW, I have a close friend who has been a drug rep for a major company (foreign) for many years now. She has been counting the hours until retirement for a long time now. It’s not a 9-to-5 or even equivalent hours spread around in some other way. They make ridiculous demands on her, and it’s all about cultivating relationships with individual doctors using Taiwanese methods (wining and dining, etc.) Not sure the OP would be the one to do that in this situation – not eliminating the possibility, but it’s something to think about.
It just doesn’t seem like a winning proposition from a financial perspective, quality of life perspective, or educational perspective. But that’s just my opinion. Personally I’d move back in a minute but I don’t have kids and my income sucks to begin with.
This was just my experience. Maybe things have gotten better now. Even the workbooks seem more kids friendly with color pictures. The workbooks we had are plain with only the necessary info. Corporal punishment was also allowed so that’s changed. I even heard they have air conditioning now in class rooms now. My teacher was especially cruel with me, she would make me stand in front of the class for an entire class and hit me in front of everyone for cracking a joke or talking with class mates. Was also the case with bad test scores and bad home work grades.
According to my daughter the naughty kids still get hit with a metal ruler on their hands. It’s not allowed but the parents support it.
Hmmm, thats messed up. Well maybe she likes it because she isn’t a naughty kid. I know many kids who never got hit and didn’t seem to mind school. I would ditch school if I knew I was going to get hit many times. Hated my teacher.
That’s very rare. When I was at school (which was more than 12 years ago) it was already banned. I don’t remember teachers hitting kids on their hands at school.