A friend has moved back home to Kaohsiung (Cianjhen) with her daughter (6) and son (4) for a year or two. Wants them to learn Mandarin and get a taste for the food and culture. Kids were born in Canada, father’s Canadian and doesn’t speak Mandarin. Kids have very limited Mandarin, no Taiwanese.
Boy’s only four years old, enrolled in kindy, and will be fine. Girl’s six years old, in grade one, and lost. Grade one: school’s out at noon. She’s looking for activities to help smooth the way for her daughter. Could be educational, could be social, sport, whatever.
For elementary school kids, there are such things as 安親班 or 補習班. These are like kindergarten but for elementary school kids. They sometimes go pick your kids up from school. They help with making homework and kids can read books there or sometimes they take kids to the park for half an hour or an hour. Something with more play time (park, outside) would be best.
Unfortunately, the 安親班 she’s been in touch with don’t want to be bothered with the trouble of a child who speaks so little Chinese.
(Old, familiar story.)
Yeah, that sounds tough. Try another one? Or emphasize that expectations are not very high. That 安親班 might just be afraid to have an angry parent if the girl does not speak perfect Chinese within two or three months. It seems reasonable for them to be afraid of that. Also, the girl might need (on average) much more hand-holding.
Other than 安親班 there is physical activity. If your friend sees any ongoing soccer activities around where she lives in the afternoon then could drop the girl off there, at least once per week. Pointing and approving or disapproving noises are enough in soccer training at that age. If the girl is easy to get along with other kids she could even just hang out at the playground with a parent. The parent could encourage that. Many kids are shy and not easy to make friends or cross a language barrier. I am not super social or outgoing, but there have been times that I managed to involve my kids with other kids in ad-hoc soccer games at the park, just by having a ball and kicking it around and when it rolls away asking for other kids to kick it back and ask whether they want to play.
Yeah, that’s helpful. I prepped kids in Taipei for moving to Canada by having their parents enrol them in a hockey club. Believe the mom’s got dance class lined up for October, but the more suggestions (and contact info) the better.