22 Jul
Both Big J & Little J have not been very receptive towards Mandarin. At home, we speak in English. When Big J first started attending Chinese Primary School, he was struggling with Mandarin. I did not give him a good foundation in Mandarin. Due to his weakness in Mandarin, he had problems to understand Maths and Science in Mandarin and he did fairly in these subjects as well. As a result, his grades were only average and he was not motivated to study.
When he was in Primary 2, I started to scout around for a good tuition center to improve his Mandarin. I enrolled him at a nearby tuition center which focussed on school Mandarin syllabus. 4 months passed, there was no progress. 6 months passed, still no progress. He became very frustrated for not being able to catch up and he was starting to lose interest in Mandarin. I realised that the problems lie with him having no good foundation in Mandarin. I started to survey all Mandarin enrichment centers such as HanYu Home, MEB and Bao Bei Reading Wonderland to find out their teaching method. The one which caught my attention was Bao Bei Reading Wonderland. They use flash cards, incorporate play and games, their concept is learning Mandarin the fun way.
I wasted no time to enrol Big J. He was the eldest kids among the smaller children. Amazingly, he showed tremendous progress and most important of all, he started to have interest in Mandarin. He was always looking forward to go to the center. And automatically, his Mandarin in school started to show improvement. From Grade C/D to Grade A/B!
I realise that Little J must have some exposure to Mandarin since he will be going to a Chinese primary school. I enrolled him in Bao Bei as well and his Mandarin improves tremendously. Then, a friend recommended me to check out Smart Little Beans Early Reading Center which focus on 3 languages, English, BM and Mandarin. I checked out the center and decided to give Little J a try.
3 weeks after Little J started his lessons in Smart Little Beans, I found out that the center is not so smart afterall, found it out the hard way! Little J is happy to go back to Bao Bei Chinese Reading Center! He misses the center due to mummy’s bad decision to switch to Smart Little Beans. :( Why is Smart Little Beans not so smart, it’s another story for another day…
8 Responses for "Learning Mandarin the fun way"
Hi Yeknee,
Can you share the story about the Smart Little Beans?
Thanks and regards,
Kathleen
Hello Kathleen,
Thanks for dropping by.
I feel that Smart Little Beans (SLB) is a bit too “academic” for my son’s liking. Little J is 5+ and he has short attention span. He learns faster through fun and play. SLB’s concept incorporate a lot of readings and no play and lots of words actually put him off. The concept may work on certain child but not my Little J.
And also 3 languages at one time does not work for him either. Our main focus is Mandarin because he is relatively good in BM and English. In SLB, the teacher who teaches Mandarin and BM tends to explain and communicate with him in English, as such he is not picking up much Mandarin compare to Bao Bei where Mandarin is strictly used. The teacher actually says that because he speaks English at home, therefore it will be easier for him to understand if she explains in English. That defeats our purpose of sending him to the center to learn Mandarin.
[...] my previous entry about learning Mandarin, I mentioned that Smart Little Beans Reading Center is not so “smart”. A reader asked [...]
Thanks Yaknee
Bao bei sounds like a good place to learn mandarin for my little girl. Where is this excellent place? Do you have their contact number?
Thank you so much
Elida, thanks for dropping by. Bao Bei has got many centers. You can check the phone number of the center nearest to you at their website, http://www.baobei.com.my/classes.html, they give free 1 week trial (except during school holidays) at no obligations.
HI Yeknee, may I know which SLB center have you sent your kids to ? I know there are some SLB centers which adopt more fun learning concept. The center will have lots of story books for the kids to nurture the reading culture puzzle for them to play .. I do agree with you if the center is too academical it will have no fun for the kids to learn and build their interest in learning.
Learning should be fun for kids !
[...] I panicked. I was equally frustrated because I was so helpless and hopeless. I struggled with the Chinese dictionary, something which was so alien to me. That’s when I started to scout around for a Mandarin enrichment center. I shared my story earlier in this blog entry. [...]
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