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yinanyinu

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  1. My experience is from a couple of years ago, so perhaps it is no longer relevant. That said, there were no lectures, rather workbooks and textbooks, along with online exercises for the younger grades. There were CDs for the language and music courses. The print option, at that time, meant that you would receive the complete package of materials in hard copy, sent to your home. It was about the size a ream of paper, for the complete program. The electronic version had all these materials online. You can return weekly/biweekly homework assignments by postal mail or by uploading to their server. They would be returned with corrections from a teacher assigned to your child. I believe it was possible to contact a tutor, but we did not. My children used the chat board to get assistance from their teachers. If you can't work with your child, a tutor would be better. The student definitely needs to work regularly, and would benefit from guidance. For language classes, it is always helpful to have a speaker available. If you are only enrolling your child in the French course, then perhaps a tutor twice a week would be sufficient if your child is pretty independent, mainly for questions and discussions. I can't remember whether the homework assignments are due weekly or biweekly, but it is definitely a regular pace of doing a little each day. No exams. I think they divide the course into units and the units further in sequences (or vice versa) and it seemed either every unit or two units, there would be a sequence just for testing. So, if you take a unit to be a week of work sessions, and each sequence to be a session, then there is one session just to complete the homework every week or two. I rather liked the programme, though it was really a lot of work for us, because we did the complete programme, rather than subjects a la carte, and if we fell behind, it became a little tense. (However, that reflected our work ethic, rather than any weakness of the programme.) The texts were clear and interesting. The guidance materials for parents/tutors was very detailed, with a suggested calendar, suggested work plans etc. My children even liked the online exercises. All in all, I heartily recommend it. Speaking specifically of the French course, my children liked the texts (and of course we tried to find the books from which these texts were excerpted to read on our own) and the writing asked of them was varied and interesting. I must say that there was a great emphasis on penmanship. DD, in grade 5, received gentle criticisms about the formation of her letters, and even a sample sheet to practice her capital letters. Hope that is useful.
  2. It's been a few years for us, but we used to have to send the evaluations in. If you have access to the website (with unique password), there should be a link to upload scanned versions of the evaluations. There is a schedule to send back the sheets. Of course, you can also send them back by mail.
  3. I used Tatou le Matou to introduce DC to French. I found this program researching what various Alliance Francaise courses for children used, and I bought the teaching set, "Malette pedagogique" It involved a lot of songs, and cutting and pasting craft-y activities. There was also a lot of repetition, which helped DC get the vocabulary, without my having to translate. The Alliance Francaise in Singapore has information about this program that might be helpful.
  4. DC have been playing the piano and are beginning to add violin. Summers they participate in a choir camp, and this is my only experience. My feeling is go with what your DC want, otherwise it is a real pain to nag them to practice, and if they don't practice, they won't progress, and it becomes a waste of time and money. If you decide on piano, acoustic is best, unless you need to keep down the noise. (That's the only plus to a weighted digital piano, even the very best, IMHO. And at that price, you could probably get a good used upright.) You can ask a friend who plays or a teacher to go with you to check out a potential piano. Many will be fine with some tuning. As others have mentioned, the voice is also an instrument, and this is often overlooked, regrettably. It's portable, social, good for theory studies, takes up no space, and anyone can pick it up. My kids love to sing, mostly with others, but they'll do solo for the grandparents. Good luck.
  5. We're doing Singapore 6 now (local version), and I think it is very valuable. DS hasn't complained about it, and all the practice books provide quite a variety of problems. It doesn't seem repetitive at all. In fact, even DS will admit that there are things he has forgotten or isn't as speedy as he should be, so it's fine to "review". In Singapore, I think there is a big test to move up to grade 7, so I can understand why this year would be review. This year, I am more insistant on DS setting up his problems properly. I did find some of the brain teasers a bit challenging, but I'm taking them as thinking points, rather than actual problems that DS needs to solve. We will continue with Singapore at least until grade 8.
  6. You can look at the eduscol website for the recommended reading list for grade 3/4, which would be cycle 3. They are listed by type, and you can see that there are quite a few translated works. I like monecole because I get a little bit more info on each book, which saves me time and helps me choose, and you can search by type of book also.
  7. We use Delicious Library. There used to be a free version which we still use, but I see that the current version is 25USD. It was quite easy to add books to the library using the computer's built-in camera to scan the books' barcodes. This works extremely well for books from North American or European publishers since I think they search the Amazon database, but you can always add items manually. This is how we found out the children have close to a thousand books! We also use it to catalogue movies and music.
  8. Both DC did this, twice! I don't have any advice, but can share our experience. Do your DC have prior exposure to the second language? When they were younger, we wanted them to learn Chinese, so we sent them to nursery for a few hours a day. For DS this was fine since he was so young, all the children were essentially learning the language at the same time. For DD, we prepared for it by going to playgroups so she had some understanding beforehand. Nursery was only a couple of hours, so they just came home, had lunch, napped and continued their merry day. We did nothing 'academic' afterward. Just the usual puttering about at home or at the playground. Later, in grade school, we wanted them to formally learn French, so we sent them to a French school. We prepared for years for this by homeschooling in French, sending DC to summer camps with Francophone children, and Saturday French school (akin to Chinese school). DS entered in grade 4 and DD grade 2. It was easier for DD than DS, and even now DD is stronger in French. The long days were rough and younger DD would just come home and nap. Essentially for the first two years, we did no further academic work at home, because it took so much energy just to adapt. For us, it seems that younger is better for these immersion-type experiences. The language learning is easier/smoother. But it takes away a lot of time from the day, and other subjects fall by the wayside. There were frustrations due to different teaching methods (school vs home) and approaches, but they weren't major and as DC became more familiar with the system, I began to afterschool to mitigate some of the issues at school and develop other subject areas. In all, these language experiences have been tough for all of us, but since DC have been doing this since they were very young, they don't realise that there are other paths! They are ambivalent about afterschooling since understandably, they are tired after a long day, and their schoolmates aren't doing it. But they also say that they feel better 'prepared' for school when they work with me at home, even though it is on completely different material. The bad is that DS doesn't have a language he is really strong in. He is a 3 in his languages, whereas DD could be considered a 5 in French and perhaps 4 in English (paternal language). Perhaps this would have been the case even if DS were monolingual, or maybe he didn't have enough time/opportunity to consolidate what he learned, we don't know. I go through long stretches during which I wonder what is the point, and consider just dropping everything and going anglophone. In the end, however, we keep on. The good is DC think they are language geniuses, essentially that they can pick up any language any time, and are willing to do so. They don't realise the incredibly hard work they put in. I suppose confidence matters. I don't know if that is helpful. Good luck.
  9. We lived in HK when DS was around 2, and enrolled him in a local nursery school. We chose one that taught Mandarin because that was the language we thought/hoped he would be able to continue. He did have homework beginning in Kindergarten 1, which consisted of one sheet once a week, tracing straight lines of rain or curves of a rainbow, bars of a lion's cage, etc. I considered this preparation for writing and we did not find it onerous. IIRC, there were two years of nursery and three years of kindergarten before grade 1 for which you must be 6 by Sept school entry. No acceleration. We only sent DS and later DD to half day sessions, even though other parents sent their children all day. I think it was an issue of childcare more than academics, at least among the parents I knew. Helpers only ensure the children's safety, not their development, alas. Some of the kindy chains were quite mercenary, so we were glad to find the one we did. We tried a few months in a couple of expat-oriented Montessori places, and were thoroughly put off, so I am sympathetic. Our school fees were not high, perhaps 3000HKD a month, and definitely local. The kids mostly stayed in their classroom but brought work to their desks, so they still played with sand, water, clay, etc, but just sitting or standing at their desk in groups of five or six. There was music and dance, and of course the usual painting, all in the course of a morning, or afternoon. The teachers were all lovely. I credit the time there for DS' interest in music. He just loved watching the teacher playing the piano and singing along. NO shaming or corporal punishment. All to say it's not all dire. Also that in spite of being in a Mandarin environment, simply due to the fact that the student population is local, DS picked up playground Cantonese quite easily, which he has now forgotten. DC are continuing with Mandarin, but it is a HUGE investment in money and time if you aren't immersed. (Probably true with any language.) We essentially chose our work and residence for eight years based on the desire to consolidate DC's Chinese. Now we spend a lot of money on tutors, summer camps, and whatever else I can think of to keep it up, since we are already so invested. Essentially a vicious circle. BUT it doesn't have to be that way. You can just find a nursery that suits you and your child, or join/start a playgroup of like-minded parents, which I did for DD when she was still too young for nursery; you can then hire an teacher to lead the group. Go with what is easiest, both languages are useful and interesting, and once you know one, it will be easier to pick up the other. Plus, it can be fun and stimulating to pick up a language without an academic or rational basis. We didn't worry about all the languages overlapping. Chinese instruction we left to the school. I began to teach reading in my native language even though DS was also beginning to decode. If you are a little away from the hustle and bustle of HK Island and Kowloon, you may find the local schools to be very relaxed, and the classes small. I found geobaby useful, and another forum like it but I don't remember the name, perhaps HKbaby or something like that. Good luck. Looking back, we benefited so much from our time there!
  10. I've been using Singapore Math, from grade 1 to now, grade 7. There is no HIG, though the books have answers to the math problems, including more difficult "challenge" problems. We are starting grade 7, and although the math problems don't pose a problem for me (whether explaining or solving), the challenge and thinking problems can stump me. For the challenge problems, although I can figure out the answer, I feel it is more through 'brute force' than elegant methodology. For the thinking problems, which I think are meant to guide the student to a deeper understanding of math, preparing for future study, I just don't know how to guide DS. I can figure out what the program wants DS to 'realise' but I'm not sure how to lead him to that point. Has anyone encountered a similar issue and what did you do about it? Here is a sample thinking problem, from the first chapter of our Grade 7 text: Han Xin, a Chinese general, devised a method to count the number of soldiers he had. First, he ordered his soldiers to form groups of 3 followed by groups of 5 and then groups of 7. In each case, he noted down the remainder. Using the three remainders, he was able to calculate the exact number of soldiers he had without doing the actual counting. Do you know how he did it? I know this is about the Chinese remainder theorem, and I can guide DS to figuring this out with some examples. But the final question stumps me. I thought I could teach DC math all the way to university, even first-year calculus etc. But perhaps I was wrong! Ideas, tips? TIA
  11. We did the phonetic language first because it got DS reading faster, then English. Learning to decode phonetic languages must be easy because DD taught herself! YMMV.
  12. We also travel as a family, like you, but now that DC are older, we are beginning to look at sleepaway summer camps in these countries. We've only done it twice but so far so good. Camps geared to local kids are more effective than camps for language learners, as far as language immersion goes, in our experience. For us, the cost of family travel is worth it to keep up the language and since one of the languages is my heritage language, we combine these visits with family visits. But I completely understand you... it's a sizeable chunk of our budget. Have you thought of hosting an exchange student? That might be something to look into as well. BIL's family did this for a couple of years and it seemed fun.
  13. TBH, there is no real enforcement. I talk up my culture a lot, which is very strange since I'm not nationalistic or patriotic at all. There is a lot of RAH-RAH, my country is great. I say that they can't claim to be from a certain country or city and not be able to communicate with people from that place. I also talk about all the foods they like and the special clothes they wear and how it's all meaningless and a costume if they can't communicate. None of this is logical, but it seems to work to a degree. Perhaps most importantly, I talk about how we all speak in different registers in various languages, and in my own language, I feel very close and intimate with the other speaker, but in another language I feel more detached and professional. So, I really play up that my heritage language is the language of my close relationships. As I said, it's not logical since I speak to DH in English, but I do mention how much closer I would feel and how much easier communicating would be if we had the same heritage language. I also am over-the-top enthusiastic when they do something using my language, like if they make a random friend at the airport, I will go on and on about how great that is, and aren't they glad they know my language, otherwise they wouldn't have made a new friend. Ditto going to the barber, or ordering food, or any little thing they do without me but in my language. So for now, they still like to hang out with my side of the family, still like to go back to my home country, still like to wear the special clothes, celebrate the special holidays, etc. That seems to keep them going. Once those connections begin to become more tenuous, I think the language will begin to disappear too. I know this is the case but I'm hoping it won't happen.
  14. We've used planners for a few years now. When DC were in lower elementary (until grade 3), they just had a notebook with days of the week tabs and they would write down what was 'due' for a given day. Then we switched to planners. The student ones from Mead work well for us. We've tried the all sizes and DC determined that the large size works best, more room. They like to see the whole week on two pages, and also like that the day is broken into hourly increments. We get them at Walmart, and in fact bought new ones last week. DC are Very excited to start using them and have highlighted all the holidays already. In the beginning of planner use, DC just wrote down their assignments like they did in the lower grades; there wasn't too much planning happening. Around grade 5, they began to use the planners more seriously. They write what needs to be done on the day it is 'due' but also on the day it is assigned. If it is a big assignment, they break it down into steps and write down what needs to be done on the day they need to do it. So, if they had a book report due in two weeks, they would write today that it was assigned, and two weeks from now that it is due. They would then break down the tasks, say read ten pages a day, and write that task for each day. Decide that in one week they need to do a first draft, etc... DD is better at doing this independently. DS still needs guidance and reminders. They also write all of their activities and practice, piano, sleepover,etc... I think it helps them to keep track although of course I still remind them to check their planners. Time management is an important skill and it doesn't come naturally to everyone; I think it's good to get started early. DC also like the contacts section at the back to keep track of their friends' phone numbers and emails.
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