How can I encourage Jilliane to be excited about Mandarin!
I speak to her in Mandarin & she blatantly ignores me. Exasperated, I sought help from Huang Ying, Head of Mandarin at Julia Gabriel. She encouraged me to read to Jillliane & use television as an aid. Yes! Tv! I like that idea :) It is assuring to know that tv when used sensibly, can be a powerful learning tool.
Out I went & bought my 1st ever Chinese songs DVD for jilliane. She wasn't too keen at the start, jumping around & couldn't spend more than 2 minutes watching it. But somehow a few days later she started to show more interest & soon she began to have her most favorite, 2nd most favourite & even 3rd most favourite song! She can sing 小星星 & 三轮车 on her own now! I'm sure many kids at her age can do alot more but for me, I'm just glad she has shown great initial progress. I've also bought a couple of Chinese books for her which she will bring to me on her own accord for me to read to her. This, to me, is good enough, at this point. I'm happy she now displays interest in this language.
Other ways that Ms Huang Ying shared with me were to label items in the house in Mandarin & to play games with jilliane in Mandarin. I've yet to do these as these would take alot more effort for Dw & myself to consciously & constantly speak the language. Nonetheless these are fab ideas which I will want to implement soon, when I've settled baby Jenson in his routine :)
1 comment:
we started with those chiinese karaoke DVD too. wonderful !!
also you might like to repeat everything u say in 2 languages. I used to do that with bernice. after i say something in english i would repeat it to her in chinese. so as to reinforce what was said and to let her understand what is being said.
i bought lots of chinese books from dang dang website, really simple interesting ones.. like few words on a page, so it wont be bored. i can give u the links if u are interested
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