EdTalk | Stepping stones to firm foundations for Mandarin as a foreign language
- It is never too soon to start immersing your child in learning the tongue. But it is vital to follow the right steps to ensure they have a solid basis for progress
If Mandarin is a foreign language for your child, but you wish them build a solid foundation in order to be prepared for the future, this article may offer some tips to help them establish a firm basis.
What are the problems parents are facing now?
If you ask young children nowadays what their least favourite subject is, the chances are, especially if they are in an international school, that Mandarin will be the answer. Their parents, in turn, will share their grief and anxiety as they simply cannot find ways to motivate their child to learn Mandarin when, in some extreme cases, it has reached the stage where they loathe the language.
This is not a new issue. When I was a child, many of my friends also found Mandarin to be the most unappealing subject ever. When I asked them why they hated it so much, they would either say they did not find it relevant to their daily lives or that their teachers were monotonous and strict. Years later, all the Mandarin they remembered was the four sounds “Bopomofo” – the basic pinyin sounds – and that is probably the level their ability remained at. Sadly, now many confess they wish they had learned it properly.
There have definitely been changes and improvements to teaching methods to make it more fun and interesting, but it seems that this “I don’t like Mandarin” situation has not changed much among our next generation.
Mandarin is one of the most beautiful languages, yet children learning it as foreign language find it so difficult to establish connections with it. So what is the missing link?