Improve Chinese Proficiency – Lead By Example!
Submitted by My boy was poor in MT oral at first. Here’s what I did to improve his oral:
1. Speak to him in MT.
2. Read a story in MT.
3. Expect him to speak to you in MT.
4. Get him to read a MT story aloud to you everyday.
Practice makes perfect. The only way to improve our speech is to speak MT on a daily basis. I will set aside half an hour everyday to read a MT story to my children. I will then ask them to read the story aloud to me. From there, they can learn to recognise new words, the correct pronounciation and build up their confidence.
Children tend to shun subjects that they are least competent in. By getting them to read aloud to you in MT gives you the chance to correct their pronounciation and at the same time, as day goes by, you will realise that your child will be more competent in his oral skills.
I kill three birds with one stone. I choose MT story books that teaches values and morales. For eg: 品德故事，爱心故事. I find them very useful. Each book comprises of several stories. Each story is kept short in order not to let the child feel bored and challenged.
My children learn about values and morales, learn new words and their comprehension improved greatly too after some time. I will always ask them questions after they finished reading the story to me. When they are reading, I will correct them on the pronounciation and I will read the story to them again and highlight the words that they need to take note. For instant, when the sentence ends with a !, I will read in a more high-pitched tone to emphasize the emotions of the author.
I teach my children the correct way of expressing the story instead of reading in a flat tone.
They will pause for 1 second after each comma, 2 seconds for full stop, exclamation marks and question mark.
We must teach our child the different tone and expression in reading the story. All these has to be explained to the child and in no time, your child can read very well.
For a start, do not choose books that are beyond your child’s standard. Start easy. You don’t want to scare your child with those tiny words and thick books. I choose books with colourful pictures and with hanyu pinyin to arouse their interests.
It is ok for them to be dependant on hanyu pinyin for a start. As days goes by, they will be able to recognise the words.
Be patient and you will be amazed at how proficient your child is.
The keyword is we, as parents must make an effort to spend some time with them everyday to give them a good headstart. I treasure this moment as it enables me to bond with my children.
My children are now able to converse in MT more confidently than before.
P.S: We are an English speaking family too. But I make it compulsory for everyone to converse in MT when it is MT time. My children do not have any tuition. I believe in spending quality time with them. I did the same for English. And I am happy to say that both my children are effectively bilingual.
We, as parents, must set a good example to the children, I started off by speaking MT to my DH and I expect him to do the same. I will correct DH if he is incorrect in his usage of words and pronounciation. Our children will start to speak MT in a more comfortable way when the parents are involved too. We walk the talk. We must be willing to invest time and effort in our children. We cannot just leave everything to the tutor and teachers to bring up the results of our children.
No one knows our children better than anyone. If you are willing to invest just 30 minutes each day reading with your child, you will be pleased with the results that follow!