Apr 13 2022
What Chinese materials can help your child? Think buying loads of learning materials such as Apps, cartoons, CDs, storybooks, etc. will assist your children in learning Mandarin? Instructors at Beijing Mandarin will shake their heads and say a definite “No!” in unison.
Additional learning materials can be useful when your child reaches a certain level of Chinese proficiency, but it is not suitable for the beginning level or when the parents themselves are not Chinese native speakers and professionals who can decide on the suitability of the textbooks, exercises, audio guides or internet resources according to their children’s study progress.
“There was once when an English mother brought a quite few Chinese books for her child, and delightfully showed them to me, we know they would have a detrimental effect on the child’s learning, let alone boosting the child’s Mandarin level, “Ms. Laura Wang, founder and headteacher of Beijing Mandarin said.
She went on to explain it, “It is difficult for non-Chinese speakers to judge if the learning material is at the optimum level or not. In the case I’ve just mentioned, what the parent had brought were materials written in Traditional Chinese and pronunciation taught in Taiwan Pinyin (ㄅ,ㄆ,ㄇ,ㄈ), while the child was learning all the way Simplified Chinese and Romanized Pinyin (b, p, m, f).”
As a veteran teacher, she suggests caring parents look for established programs that can guide their children through the challenges they will meet on the learning journey, while also guiding the parent to accompany their child to be an efficient Chinese learner.
Finding a trustworthy school and dependable tutor is merely the first step. Parents should also try outlining their children’s scope of learning and help establish timetables for their studies. Regular meetings and little chats with tutors will always be good. Reminder if preferred to supervision when urging children to finish their homework and revision. Never spoil the fun of learning!