nutella08
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Posts posted by nutella08
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I'm sure you're kids will be fine. From what I understand, in rest of the world, being multilingual is fairly common. My father is a professional translator and many of my cousins speak on average 6-7 languages fluently including various Chinese "dialects".
Mandarin is technically my first language but English is by far my dominant. I can "get by" in Japanese & Spanish. I majored in Linguistics and being bilingual/multilingual definitely made picking other languages easier.
I have a question about Cantonese. When I meet people and speak to them I generally understand what they are saying but when I watch Chinese TV/ new or even cartoons I don't always understand. Why is that? It seems like they are using some kind of different dialect when on TV.
I don't think it's necessarily dialect, although languages do evolve so the Cantonese spoken in the bay area may have different accent & word usage from HK, which is still different from that spoken in the mainland or SE Asia. However more likely, I find colloquial Chinese is significantly different from "literate" speak of someone with higher education in Chinese. I can carry a basic conversation in Mandarin fairly comfortably but it took awhile to get used to the vocabulary & idioms used in news and other media. Reading bedtime stories and watching cartoons with the kids through the years helped improve my comprehension.
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Here's a list of charter options in that area
http://www.ochomeschooling.com/options/charter-school/
I believe the following schools are more generous wrt funding. I would recommend visiting their website and looking at the vendors to see if there are tutors that meet her needs.
Sky Mountain Charter School
Mountain Peak Charter School
http://www.mountainpeakcharter.org/
River Springs Charter School
http://www.riverspringscharter.org/
Good luck!
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Even though you've missed NaNoWriMo this year, you can still use their workbooks. Then, the novel can be self-published at CreateSpace.com. Through NaNoWriMo you get 5 copies free but you can actually self-publish any time on your own. If I remember correctly, it's around $2-$3 per copy (maybe $5 including shipping) so the cost is not prohibitive.
http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/workbooks
You might also want to take a look at Writing Magic: Creating Stories that Fly by Gail Carson Levine the Newbery Honor Book winner of Ella Enchanted.
http://www.amazon.co...s=writing magic
In Writing Magic, Newbery Honor author Gail Carson Levine shares her secrets of great writing. She shows how you, too, can get terrific ideas for stories, invent great beginnings and endings, write sparkling dialogue, develop memorable characters—and much, much more. She advises you about what to do when you feel stuck—and how to use helpful criticism. Best of all, she offers writing exercises that will set your imagination on fire. With humor, honesty, and wisdom, Gail Carson Levine shows you that you, too, can make magic with your writing.
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SpeechTechie as a file with a big list of various SLP apps. Maybe you can find one that fits your needs.
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We've found sound quality through the computer to be fine. Once in awhile there's some lag time with streaming, but usually turning off the video solves the problem. A caveat, we do speak Chinese at home already, so perhaps our tolerance for what is acceptable may be different. However, my impression is that most of their students are not necessarily experienced speakers.
As for Better Chinese, it looks like the $50 includes the absolute minimum: textbook + audio CD. If you're somewhat hesitant about the whole process & investment, that might be sufficient for your initial purposes. However, without the parent/teacher's guide or workbook, it's probably not much help to you unless you bring an experienced tutor on board. If you're planning to hire a tutor anyway, perhaps you can wait and see if they can recommend which works best with their philosophy & experience. And if your kiddo is dying to get started on something in the meantime, does your library has some free material you can borrow? Pimsleur is nice intro for listening & basic speaking, if you can get it free.
Better Chinese Homeschooler's Starter Kit for $270 includes:
My First Chinese Words 36 Storybooks + Audio CD <<=== this is the only piece included for $50
My First Chinese Words Workbook Set (Workbooks 1 & 2)
I love Chinese 12 additional Storybooks + Audio CD
Sing with Better Chinese Audio CD set (4 CDs)
My First Chinese Game
My First Chinese Words Parent/Teacher Guide in English
My First Chinese Words Online 1-36 (6-month subscription)
Better Chinese Sticker
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You could look into an Skype tutoring service from China. I have some experience with echineselearning.com; you can pm me if you want more details. There are others out there and they all offer a free trial, so it may be worth trying one out.
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I would recommend looking into WriteGuide for a month or 2. You get a private writing consultant who works with your child every day on the topic of your choice. They give assignment that should take about 30-4 We did it for a month and the improvement in writing for DD was impressive. I remember some reviewers mentioned that some consultants spent too much time (like the whole month) on 1 essay. I requested 1 essay a week and it worked out well.
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dd did all the tutorials/lessons at http://learnscratch.org/. I sat with her thru the 1st couple to get her started. Now she browses the online gallery and downloads projects to learn how others do interesting things. She's hooked. When I get the chance, we're going to try Alice next.
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My kids enjoyed Shakespeare Animated Tales from BBC. I think each "play" is about 30 minutes but broken into 3 parts with 10-minute chunks on youtube. The complete video is also available on DVD.
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Dora La Exploradora worked really well for my kids (and myself) when they were younger. There's enough repetition, basic vocabulary, and constant chattering. We don't watch much TV any more but we used to have the SAP (secondary audio programming) on the TV set to Spanish. So everything on HBO Family, I think Disney, and maybe others automatically broadcasted in Spanish. But for Dora, we had to get from a Spanish only channel. Good luck!
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Try taking a look at...
Challenging Word Problems for Primary Mathematics 4 (publisher of Singapore Math but works fine without the textbook)
Math Olympiad Contest Problems (the contests are geared for grade 4 and up)
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We did the Geraldine McCaughrean version. But there's also an online version of the translation:
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What about using blue and yellow acrylic paint to colour the beads?
Would pony beads from craft stores work instead?
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Have you tried your local library? We borrowed some from our library (Shakespeare, Canterbury Tales). I'm not sure I would invest in/purchase them but my kids did enjoy them. They provide a brief introduction to the various topics and are presented with comic book style illustrations. Captions under the illustrations, written in plain/modern English, tell the very basic storyline. Dialogue bubbles are usually excerpted from the texts keeping original language.
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An electronic flashcard system definitely seems to be the way to go - I've heard of Anki, and how you can collect stacks (is that the term?) of cards to flash. I suppose you can also create the cards on the computer?
I had cards on the computer in the past. To me, the biggest advantage with Anki is the scheduling of cards (higher frequency on new words while decreasing frequency on older/mastered words) so we're not constantly forced through the entire set or spending too much time on those that are too "easy". DD9 reviews about 100 characters in less than 10 minutes daily. DD6 does about 50 characters in 10 minutes. We started using Anki last summer and it has really helped their retention (and mine too).
But it makes sense - writing, actions bring in the kinesthetic memory component.
I agree that the kinesthetic act of writing helps with memory. We do SOME writing but very lacking in comparison to traditional systems. I have an idealistic vision that my kids will enjoy and appreciate Chinese. I just see too many heritage students with strong aversions due to writing overkill and can't even speak much despite plenty of family or environmental exposure. So in our home, we have more emphasis on listening, speaking, and reading.
I like your ideas of the acting/songs for younger dc, though it might be painful for my own dc to watch me come up with one. :D
Oh, I don't come up with songs myself. There are plenty of collections of children songs in book form. The "acting" is fairly obvious: quacking for duck, oinking for pigs, moo-ing for cows, etc. I guess I started when the kids were young enough and hadn't started judging me too critically. :D
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When my kids were young, between age 2-5, I started exposing them to Chinese character flashcards/homemade videos similar to the methods used in Your Baby Can Read DVDs and How to Teach Your Baby to Read by Glenn Doman. We started with animals and action verbs where we could act out in a silly way. Then we pieced them together and identified characters in popular children songs. The first 100 characters or so were fun & relatively painless to learn. The kids were just excited to recognize the characters in the song & storybooks we read together.
In the last couple years, I've gotten a little more systematic (unfortunately, less fun but not too painful). We currently follow curriculum for Taiwan schools (but not necessarily at grade level) and learn the new vocabulary in each lesson weekly. Once they've mastered a character, I put it in into Anki so they can continue to review them. Before using Anki, I found the kids were learning lots of characters but forgetting them just as quickly unless it was a very high frequency word. Now, I keep track of how many characters they know in Anki and give them a "prize" (bribe) when their total count reaches a multiple of 100 characters, maybe every couple of months (I'm a cheapskate). We spend about 15 minutes daily on new lessons, including reading practice, and 10 minutes daily reviewing characters in Anki. We don't focus too much on writing yet. Guess I'm a heretic. ;)
I suppose my near term goal wrt character recognition is to cover first 2000 frequently used characters, around 5-6th grade Taiwan curriculum. For "explanation", I use whatever method helps … whether it's drawing the pictogram, pointing out radical, telling a silly story, or even using usual gestures or dramatic intonation. But I generally reserve explanations for just the few characters that the kids seem to really struggle with. Otherwise, coming up with all the creative approaches is more than I can handle. :tongue_smilie: I have a couple books with mnemonics that helped me when I was learning myself but I'd think there's better ones out there today. HTH.
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Warren Buffet has a cute website for kids:
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It's more of a supplement but H.A. Rey (author of Curious George) has a couple really nice books for identifying constellations. Find the Constellations is a nice introduction. The Stars is more an in-depth reference. Our library had both.
http://www.amazon.com/Find-Constellations-H-Rey/dp/054713178X/
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Salsa is another FREE online Spanish for younger kids option worth looking into:
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On nice days, we try do school outside as well, so the hours can add up. I put out a little desk & chair on the backyard patio for written work. We sit on a cushioned bench outside for readings and discussions. It can get tricky to balance warmth vs glare but finding it can be blissful.
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You could design your own ...
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We've always talked about current events. But last year, DD8 started watching CNN Student News on the web daily. She finds the reporting easier to follow that "adult" news. DS6 has been watching along but the comprehension is definitely much shallower.
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Is your focus more to improve listening skills or learn history? It's been hard to find good history material for young kids. But folktales and traditional fairy tales work well for listening. We don't have many DVDs but my kiddos enjoy some online videos.
On youtube.com, do search for "童話故事".
Take a look at http://www.tom61.com/ There's tons of videos, some history stuff too. My kids enjoyed 小鲤鱼
Good luck!
How to find a Skype language exchange partner
in Bilingual Education Board
Posted
http://www.language-exchanges.org seems roughly to do what you're looking for. Haven't tried it myself.
Skype Community has a forum where people have posted similar requests. Search for "language exchange".
The premise is great for adults and highly motivated youngsters. But it takes quite a bit of discipline. Otherwise, it can be really challenging to get kids "out of their comfort zone". Personally, I've had better luck with my kids with people who speak no English. Even if the other party speaks just tiny bit of English, my kids will tend to speak only English.