@ghag17
To speak of tutor, do you hire one for your son to learn Chinese?
No. He's a bit young at this point (turning 4).
I always say, I'm not teaching my son Chinese. I'm establishing a relationship with my son using Chinese. I mean, my parents just spoke to me in Mandarin and that's how I learned it. It's just part of everyday life for me so I'm doing the same with my son by making it everyday life for him.
I have a few months ago, trialed a Sunday Chinese school but unfortunately, I don't think it's going to work. I trialled what they call their preschool class e.g. 3.5years and up yet when I went there, all the kids were at least 5 years old, only speak English and the teachers are teaching them as they would 5 year olds. Totally not the best way to teach a 3.5yo.
So I'm waiting for him to be a bit older and can actually take formal lessons and then I'll see if I can find someone who can teach him to read. Having said that, I'm already teaching him to read so .... I don't know. Maybe I won't in the end.
I think definitely, by the time he's at school, I'll hire a tutor to follow Taiwan's Chinese subject curriculum and try my best to have him keep up with English.
Having said that, even I didn't end up doing that. My parents initially taught me themselves following Taiwan's curriculum (my mum brought grade books from Taiwan over to Australia) and then when I was in year 5, sent me to Sunday Taiwanese Chinese school. She ultimately pulled me out by year 9. I think at that point, I was like, halfway through year 6 curriculum. Their progress was so slow. I was bored out of my wits. My mum taught me to read in Chinese by the time I was 4 and then just stocked a whole heap of books at home which I would read at my leisure. By the time she sent me to Chinese school, I was already reading mangas without ZhuYin. In fact, I'm pretty sure I could read Chinese newspapers by then as well. So Chinese school was pretty useless in my eyes because students were all conversing in English anyway.
So I think my bare minimum goal for my son is his Chinese needs to be on par to mine. If I can get it to be better, awesome but I'll try and be as realistic as possible.
I think in a way, surprisingly, my parents weren't super pushy with Chinese EXCEPT that we have to speak it with family no matter what and that we have to know how to read. Beyond that, my parents let me buy and read all the mangas in the world and that was a major motivation for me to keep using it because back then, many mangas aren't getting published in English.
Are you using any Chinese immersion daycare or weekend classes?
I wish. I live in one the most well known Chinese suburb in Sydney and yet. YET. There's ZERO Chinese immersion daycares. Honestly shocking. Having said that, most daycares will at least have one Mandarin speaking educator but it's still not the same. My son actually attends a German bilingual daycare. I have no trouble finding German, French, Spanish and Japanese ones. Just no Chinese. Though I will say some daycares have 1 hour Mandarin class per day as part of their curriculum but I doubt it's useful. I have one friend who is a native Chinese speaker (1st gen immigrant - migrated here at uni) and has sent his children to these daycares offering Mandarin classes but because he lets the kids speak English at home, neither of his kids can speak Mandarin. Honestly ironic that my son who is 2nd gen, with one parent who can't even speak Mandarin, is fluent whereas their kids with both native speaking parents AND grandparents at home, don't even speak it. It really comes down to parent's determination.
There's at least 2 other programs near my area offering immersion programs but they're both tailored towards kids learning Mandarin as a second language. I heard it's good but I've trialled one of them and again, it wasn't useful for us. It's useful if you don't speak Mandarin at home but when you're practically raising your children as native speakers, it wasn't all that helpful.
Or I've found a family day care where the educator only speaks Mandarin, teaches them how to read in Chinese but they're super religious which is a deal breaker for us.
It's been super frustrating.
I heard that kids would stop using minority language when they go to school/daycare.
This really comes down to how you respond when your kids come home speaking English.
So my son started daycare at 2.5yo. He's still speaking Mandarin to me. There was this one time he tested whether he could get away with speaking English to me and I just responded with, "Why are you speaking to me in English?" And he immediately switched back.
Where I have seen English completely taking over is because parents started responding back IN ENGLISH. That's when it all falls apart. Or allowing their children to only speak English.
The trick really is to shut it down immediately. When I started trying to speak English to my parents ,they immediately shut it down. My dad just straight up ignored me (cruel actually - won't recommend that) and even told my brother to not respond unless I speak Mandarin. They did this immediately so it was very easy for me to switch back to Mandarin because my parents never allowed me to even get used to speaking to them in English.
So I kind of use that as my guide and am doing the same with my son (not the ignoring part. Just being consistent and gently shutting down any attempt of speaking English to me).
The other observation I've made is this seems to be more of a problem if
- Child goes to daycare before they've started talking e.g. at 1 and
- One parent doesn't speak Mandarin.
This combination really comes down to lack of exposure. With just 1, it's actually still fine if it's heritage language at home. There's enough exposure. But having a community language speaking spouse at home does create extra challenges. You want at least around 30% exposure in your child's waking hours for it to stick.
When my son started daycare, in less than 6 months, English overtook Mandarin when previously, I'd say Mandarin was slightly ahead because he was being looked after by my mum and myself.
So I purposely never went back to full-time work. My son's at daycare 4 days a week and I purposely leave 1 full day a week where I'm with him and we're using Mandarin 100%.
Once I did that, the balance was better. His English is still way ahead due to exposure but he's still speaking to me in Mandarin 100% of the time. The amazing thing is, if he doesn't know a term in Chinese, he'd describe it or find other ways to explain himself. I think reading to him every night is a big factor because it meant his vocabulary range, across both languages, is way ahead of his age.
All I can do is to keep up his exposure.
So
- only Mandarin media at home
- reading every night in Mandarin
- weekly Mandarin play dates
- trying to see my parents once a week or fortnightly at least
Another thing I fully recommend is ONLY speak Mandarin even if you're speaking to your husband in English. I ALWAYS switch back to Mandarin. If you let family time become English, then exposure drops further.
Anyways, it's just exposure, exposure, exposure and don't give up.
I'm planning to take my son back to Taiwan once a year as well for better immersion. If your mum's in China, I'd recommend video calling her every day and have your child interact with her. Another great exposure and great way to get your child to bond with your mum.
But I'd say the best thing you could do is find like-minded parents and create a play group with their kids. Having peers to play with is a big motivator.
The play date we have is a uni friend and their daughter is just a month younger than my son and they've been playing with each other since birth in Mandarin so they're very used to playing together in Mandarin.
Through daycare and FB as well, I have found other like minded parents and we're just arranging as many play dates as we can to keep it up.
But yeah. I feel like it's playing whack a mole a bit with community exposure
I'm trying to speak to my husband more in Mandarin as well to get him to understand more as I'm contemplating switching to Mandarin at home only once my son's at school. If my husband could at least understand by then (he understands a lot already), then we could do it and it'll keep the exposure up.
Anyways, sorry for the word vomit.
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