学讲华语

I have been bringing Noey for Mandarin Playclub classes at Julia Gabriel for the last 3 weeks and today was the last lesson for the term.

I have always been a little worried about Noey learning Chinese, as any Chinese parent with a child who would have to enter the school system here would be. We speak English exclusively at home. Even my parents speak English all the time. We don't watch much TV, in English or Mandarin. The only Mandarin he hears regularly would be from my aunt (who would be around on the 2 days a week that my Mum looks after Noey) and from my mother-in-law. Unfortunately they both also tend to switch to English a fair bit cos I guess that's the only way they can get him to understand and respond to them!

We (or at least I) REALLY wanted to have one parent speak to him exclusively in Mandarin and the other exclusively in English, but in the end, neither of us were really comfortable or fluent enough in the language to take on the challenge. Seriously, while I got through Mandarin in school fairly well, my Mandarin these days is really shocking, the victim of neglect and disuse.

So I decided to do what I love to do: Bring Noey for a class.

Especially with Noey just absorbing everything these days, I figured this was the opportunity for me to imprint some Chinese on his consciousness. I toyed with the idea of joining the bilingual class but in the end I thought if I wanted him to get comfortable with the language, I should just go the whole hog and bring him for the Mandarin class.

Noey finally getting with the programme and sitting still to listen for a bit. This has been the most stressful part for me cos it's difficult to get him to sit still and the teachers don't like kids to roam around so they are constantly leading him back or getting him to sit down. I really have to grab him quite a bit to keep him in line!

I think he was rather stunned during the first trial class when the teachers spoke to him in Mandarin to whole time. He kept clinging to me rather alarmedly whenever they tried to approach him. But towards the end of the 2 hours, he became receptive enough to repeat his own name, and say 再见 and 谢谢 when asked. I was encouraged, and since there were only 3 weeks left to the term at that point, I thought there was no harm letting him finish off the 3 weeks and see how he fares.

3 weeks ended today and I must say, he has improved by leaps and bounds. That he can repeat a phrase of 2 to 3 words after the teacher fairly accurately, I am not surprised. Noey is quite the tape recorder after all! But now when you ask him what something is or what colour it is in Mandarin -- ie. 这是什么? or 这是什么颜色？-- he will answer in Mandarin as long as he knows the answer. So far he can say 花, 大象, 飞机, 苹果, 葡萄, 米饭, 水 and 粉红色. He can also recite the numbers 1 to 5 fairly accurately, with some prompting. In fact one funny thing that has happened is that a few times when I say 是, he has mistaken it for 四 and said 五 in reply. Totally cracks me up.

He also understands much more than he used to and today I realised that he can follow through instructions like 拍拍手 and 点点头 without me gesturing or prompting him. Hurray!

I've also taken the opportunity to try to brainwash him into liking Chinese, so now if you ask him if he likes Chinese class, he will say "Yes", with a smile. Of course when you ask him what he does in Chinese class, his answer is "Play!" which of course really tells you why he likes Chinese class!

Hmmm, do you think anyone would notice if I just slipped these 2 trucks into my bag?

I've decided to carry on for the next term since the returns thus far seem pretty good! Hey, even my own Chinese is improving as well since I make it a point to speak to him in Mandarin as far as possible during the 2 hour class session. But it's a huge committment to bring him for class twice a week (that's the minimum) for 10 weeks, especially since I'm only home 3 afternoons a week. Usually I bring him for classes for interaction and just to get out of the house, but this is the one class where I really want him to learn something. And since he seems to be learning, I guess I'll be continuing.

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Some comments on the class, in case anyone is interested to try it out:

Likes:
- Good class ratio. This is probably due to the fact that Noey is in the weekday 4.30pm class. It isn't a popular time slot so there are about 8-9 kids with 3 teachers. The teachers therefore do play with/speak to Noey one-on-one quite a bit during each lesson.
- Constant reinforcement. There is a lot of repetition. One key word is covered a week (ie. over 2 lessons) and all the activities centre around the key word so the kids hear it alot. The teacher also scrolls through the entire list of key words on flashcards one-on-one with the kids every lesson and I found that Noey could recognise and repeat the words for the weeks he did not attend because of this.
- Varied outdoor play. There is a schedule that rotates through Water Play (playing with water toys), Sand Play, Swimming (getting wet in wading pools) and Playground activities.
- Teachers. The teachers for Noey's class are enthusaistic and seem to genuinely love kids, which is a good thing!

Dislikes:
- The fact that they insist that kids sit down and listen quite a bit. Maybe it's because I have an active son but I think that kids this age should still be allowed to roam a bit, though I do agree that it shouldn't be disruptive to the class. If he's not interested to sit down and listen, he just isn't. Then again I appreciate the fact that they really want the kids to be involved in what's going on.
- The institution feels a bit cold and too business oriented. Maybe it's the folks at the front desk that give off that all-too-efficient vibe. That and their strict policies on make-up classes, withdrawals, etc. I understand that the Company is quite a behemoth with centres/schools scattered nationally and internationally so they need some rules, but I contrast this to Playdays which really has that warmth that makes you feel right at home, and flexible policies on make-up classes, and I'm not feeling the love at JG!