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yutaofeng
Squeeker
Joined: Nov 20, 2003
Posts: 14
Status: Offline
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 Posted:
May 12, 2008 - 06:05 PM |
 
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| Post subject: How to make my 4.5 yr old daughter bilingual? |
My daughter is now 4.5 yrs old and speaks Mandarin only, because both my wife and I are chinese and speak mandarin at home, although we lived in the US for over 14 years before moving back to China. We are trying to get her into a local kindergarten, but wondering if there are any options (international schools are too expensive for us since my company does not cover that) to get her more bilingual. I thought about summer program, weekend activities, etc, but yet to be able to find something concrete enough... Any suggestions? |
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8lrr8
StreetBeater
Joined: Oct 14, 2004
Posts: 2201
Location: here!
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May 12, 2008 - 06:32 PM |
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start speaking eng. to her at home?
find her some white friends?
make her watch disney flicks?
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icyfrosty
Seeker
Joined: Nov 25, 2006
Posts: 69
Status: Offline
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May 12, 2008 - 10:25 PM |
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You can't 'make' your child bilingual. You have to teach her, as with all skills you want your child to acquire. |
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BBCExpat
Barker
Joined: Mar 29, 2008
Posts: 169
Status: Offline
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May 12, 2008 - 10:46 PM |
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education starts at home. There's nothing wrong speaking to her in English and Mandarin at home. But if you are going to make your child go to a Mandarin speaking school my opinion is to only speak to her in English at home and she will learn quick on Chinese at school while the speed of English is down to how well you teach her at home. Because this technique this is how my parents made me biligual in Cantonese and English. My only regret was being lazy and forgetting all my Cantonese characters but at least I can speak it well. No matter how much they whine you need to keep thinking how much do you really want your child to be ligual. Even if she doesn't like the idea she will be grateful when she is 14 years plus. She is too young to understand why you want her to learn an extra language at this stage in life so it's down to you on how much pressure you're willing to let your child go through to be biligual. |
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lzoumis
Squeeker
Joined: Feb 22, 2007
Posts: 10
Status: Offline
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May 13, 2008 - 08:47 AM |
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Where are you living? I know, here, in Pudong is a chinese kindergarden with an english "VIP" class...Its near Huamu Lu...
Kids Gallery has also Beginners English on Sunday (age 4-6). Its expensive allthough (about 2500 for 3 months) |
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happyck
Reacher
Joined: July 11, 2006
Posts: 253
Status: Offline
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May 13, 2008 - 09:34 AM |
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I agree...speak 100% english at home and let the kid learn Chinese at school. Kids pick up a lot from school.
I became bilingual the opposite way, mom and dad spoke chinese at home and i spoke english at school.
DVDs are also a good idea, put the english subtitles on if needed, but never the chinese.
Musicals are the best, as you can see people articulate with their mouths, but cartoons are more fun to watch. |
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be happy! and get out of my face. |
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yutaofeng
Squeeker
Joined: Nov 20, 2003
Posts: 14
Status: Offline
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May 13, 2008 - 01:43 PM |
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hi all thanks for replying and all the suggestions 
speaking english 100% at home is not easy for us, especially when grandma is involved but we'll try. It's easier for us if we can find an english environment outside (but as I said in original post, international school is ruled out).
one idea, if there's expat kid out there of similar age, who wants to improve mandarin, then we can let them play together... of course for this to work, many other conditions have to be met, e.g. they get along, living in same area, weekend only and what will they do, etc etc... |
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Portsmouth
Seeker
Joined: Mar 26, 2007
Posts: 70
Location: Shanghai
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May 13, 2008 - 03:04 PM |
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Think you and your wife could speak 100% English to your kid at home while grandma speaks Chinese to your kid. Kids are very smart and they know who to speak to in Chinese and who to speak to in English. It might not feel natural at the beginning to your kid that mom/dad speaks to her now in English but she will get over that soon. Our 4 year old has always been raised bilingual at home – dad speaks English and nannies speak only Chinese. I’m bilingual but I speak to her mainly in English because I know she has many people to practice her Chinese in Shanghai. She flips easily between her English and Chinese.
I think it is much easier to speak English to your kid yourselves than to find some English playmates for her, if she doesn’t already have some English speaking little friends/neighbors. |
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happyck
Reacher
Joined: July 11, 2006
Posts: 253
Status: Offline
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May 13, 2008 - 04:13 PM |
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I've seen kids in my compound, blond blue eyes, who speak in fluent shanghainese back at their ayis. I go WOW
Maybe get a foreigner student to babysit. but they're not babies...do they need to be picked up? I used to do that in France, pick up 3 girls after school and spoke English to them for 1 hour. If its consistent I'm sure it'll help. And it gives you free time to do other stuff.
If the kid actually gets to start to speak English to this picker-upper, he or she might be proud to show it off to his/her friends by speaking more to the foreigner in the presence of friends, which accelerates learning. |
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be happy! and get out of my face. |
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msittig
Rocker
Joined: Oct 06, 2004
Posts: 717
Location: Zhangjiang High-Tech Park
Status: Offline
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May 13, 2008 - 05:15 PM |
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Our house has English Month, followed by Chinese Month, followed by... and so on. |
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Hi Charlotte! |
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BS
Reacher
Joined: Sep 12, 2007
Posts: 238
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May 13, 2008 - 06:03 PM |
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I would think that she needs a lot of exposure to really become bilingual. having an expat friend would probably not be enough.
Switch to English at all times with her. Let Chinese be taught at school and grandma.
This is nothing difficult for a child.
Have you ever wondered at 7 year-olds speaking fluently in different languages to people in the same room? (Russian with Babushka, Spanish with Mother, French with father.) That's how you achieve this! And that's before starting learning English and other foreign languages at school! |
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happyck
Reacher
Joined: July 11, 2006
Posts: 253
Status: Offline
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May 14, 2008 - 02:13 PM |
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my mom's friend's 2 kids speak fluent french english japanese chinese.
Chinese to mom, English to dad, French at school while living in paris, and also lived in japan for a bit so learned that at school too. |
_________________
be happy! and get out of my face. |
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beautybeast
Seeker
Joined: Mar 24, 2008
Posts: 55
Status: Offline
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May 19, 2008 - 04:17 PM |
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| Post subject: bilingual |
I am french and have moved out to Shanghai 2 years ago. When we first arrived, our children only spoke french as that is the only language at home. Both my husband and I speak English but we only speak french to our children. From experience, i believe the environment that you child goes to school is very important. Just like adults, children best learn the language through being in the language environment. We had enrolled our children at Montessori School of Shanghai, a bi-lingual kindergarten, where they have what they call a simultaneous bi-lingual acquisition environment. Children are exposed to two languages (english and chinese) at the same time throughout the entire day. This is unlike many schools that I've looked at. So having both my children at this school, have given them the opportunity to absorb two languages. They were able to speak fluently within 2 months or so (my children were younger though, one entered at 1.5 and one entered at 3). So by only speaking french at home, we did not realize our children had picked up these two languages so quickly and fluently until one of the school's weekend events when both my husband and I went to attended. When we were in the classroom with our children and their teachers, the children started speaking in the different languages with the different people that they encountered or interacted with. it was quite amazing, my husband practically fell off his chair because he didn't realize that our children could do that! it was great but that just showed that the environment is very important. You can enroll your children into language classes, but we are strong believers that we don't want to give our children the hard pressure at this time in their lives. It the multi-language skill can come naturally, why not? |
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etm
Talker
Joined: May 17, 2005
Posts: 117
Location: Shanghai, China
Status: Offline
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May 20, 2008 - 02:14 PM |
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Another option to consider is a local or semi-local kindergarten where there is a international class. This would be cheaper then the full international school but more expensive then a local kindergarten.
Most important for kids to pick up a new language is exposure and practise. I speak to our kids in English, hubby being from France speaks French and they pick up Mandarin from the ayi and from school - for our oldest. All 3 kids understand all 3 languages but speak at varying degrees depending on how much exposure or practise they got. In this case French being the least spoken though understood since hubby works long hours. |
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Want to know about the Shanghai Foodies Group? PM me. |
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canuckian
Raver
Joined: Aug 12, 2007
Posts: 400
Status: Offline
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| Posted:
May 20, 2008 - 02:33 PM |
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| 8lrr8 wrote: |
| make her watch english disney flicks? |
that is actually the most efficient method. on top of that, she can get accurate pronunciation and learn fast as she would want to mimic the characters on TV. |
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