If you want to teach your kids Chinese, but don't speak it yourself, you've come to the right place. The resources I've chosen to compile here are a result of my experiences (as a mom and teacher) and the influences of my background in language development, literacy, and education. I hope that the ideas here will help you find creative ways to teach your children Chinese.
Hello, We attended the Taiwan Mandarin Institute summer camp in Taipei around 3 years ago. My son was 6 years old at the time. I couldn't recommend it more, very friendly and his Chinese really improved so much. It looks like I will be back there again in 6 years as number 2 is on the way : D :D , I don't have the website link for it, but you might find on the search sites. Cher
ReplyDeleteHi Cher,
DeleteThanks for the suggestion. I took a look at the site, but I only see classes for adults. Do you know if they have any classes for kids?
Hi, my name is Joyce and I'm Chinese American, me and my husband's backgrounds are similar to your husband's, born abroad and brought up here so our Chinese isn't so great, but not terrible. I'm trying to teach my kids 2 and 4 Chinese but the resources here aren't sufficient. Thank you so much for your website. Being Cantonese (from Hong Kong) but pretty fluent in conversational Mandarin but not knowing any ZhuYin (and only "hacking" my way through Pinyin), I want to learn ZhuYin to be able to teach my kids to pronounce Chinese words accurately. And your site has been great. Please know that you're making a big impact even if people aren't commenting. Your early posts have been a great help to me already and I only just found your site today!
ReplyDeleteJoyce
Thanks, Joyce. It is wonderful to hear that this blog is helping other families. The blog is definitely a work in progress though. This means that as my children grow older, the types of posts I produce are changing, too. Please, let me know if there is anything in particular you are looking for. Also, if you find a resource that you've found invaluable, please share!
DeleteAt the top of the website (you may not see this on a smartphone) are my favorite resources. There's a section for learning Hanyu Pinyin and a section for Zhuyin FuHao.
My favorite app by far is the 2Kids app (http://panda-mom.blogspot.com/2011/12/radicals-2kids.html), which teaches simplified characters. The company that produced this app also makes an app to teach Hanyu Pinyin.
It is much harder to find materials that teach traditional characters for preschool kids. If you are looking for traditional characters/Zhuyin FuHao, let me know.
Best of Luck!
I recommend MLC in taipei for kids. We attending this camp in 2015 summer. Kids were age 11 and 8 at that time. Unfortunately it is for overseas chinese so there is a lot of english speaking, so not truly chinese immersion. However there is a chance to learn about culture. Your child can pick simplified or traditional Chinese. My children were smart and "failed" the test the first day so they were in the beginners class and didn't learn much in their 3 weeks. But it was a good experience overall...
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